Arsonist agrees to $7.5M in restitution

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A former Occupy Fort Collins protester convicted of burning down an upscale apartment building under construction must pay $7.5 million in restitution.

The Coloradoan reports that 37-year-old Benjamin Gilmore and prosecutors reached the restitution agreement before a Thursday court hearing. The money will go to victims and owners of both Mason Street Flats and nearby Penny Flats, which was already occupied at the time of the October 2011 fire.

It caused more than $10 million in damage.

Gilmore, a beekeeper, was sentenced in December to eight years in prison for criminal mischief and 6 years for burglary -- sentences to be served concurrently.

Gilmore has maintained his innocence. He claims that a transient man set the fire.

"I believe the truth will prevail and we will see justice some day -- maybe not in this court, but maybe in the court of appeals," Gilmore said at his sentencing in December.

The Gilmore case attracted national attention because he supported demonstrations at an Occupy Wall Street encampment a block away from where the fire was started. Occupy activists were protesting against economic inequality and government policies favoring the wealthy.

The 2011 fire caused an estimated $10 million damage to a four-story apartment complex that was under construction and the occupied Penny Flats condominium and retail building next door.

Gilmore's first trial ended in a hung jury in September 2012.

But a second jury convicted him of arson, burglary and criminal mischief.

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Arsonist agrees to $7.5M in restitution