Suspect in 'graffiti house' arson case pleads out

Tommy Ellis

ALFRED, Maine - The former Milton man who was arrested in the arson of the so-called “graffiti house” at the foot of Lebanon’s Prospect Hill has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and been released from jail.

Tommy Ellis, who had previously lived on Charles Street and also has ties to Epping, N.H., pleaded guilty last month to the lesser charge of “failure to report or control a fire,” a Class D felony. Arson is a Class A felony.

With presentencing credit of days incarcerated, he was immediately released and gave an address in North Berwick, Maine, as his new residence.

Ellis was arrested Aug. 10 by Epping Police on a fugitive from justice warrant and has been at the Alfred jail ever since after waiving extradition to Maine several days later.

The house, which was gutted in a spectacular fire during the early morning hours of June 22, was identified as a marijuana growing factory, but no charges were ever filed after Maine DEA agents were only able to salvage a few plants as evidence.

Looking across Champion Street at the vacant lot where the house formerly stood.

During the arson investigation the State Fire Marshal’s Office indicated that Ellis and the person who rented the house knew each other, but no motive for the fire was ever released.

No other charges were ever filed in the case.

The former graffiti house, strewn for decades with the political rhetoric of the late Clarence "Clabby" Tanner of Lebanon who formerly lived there, was sold to the new owners a few years ago.

The former tiny, clapboard house had been sided in recent years and appeared to have been kept tidy. 

Today nothing is left on the vacant lot on which it stood after the town had it razed late last year.