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Lincoln County Man Sentenced to Prison on Federal Arson Charges

 
CHARLOTTE, NC — Zulfiqar Ali Kacho, 40, of Vale, N.C. was sentenced on August 13, 2014 to serve 33 months in prison on a federal arson charge, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn, Jr. also sentenced Kacho to serve one year under court supervision.

U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined in making today’s announcement by John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Charlotte Division.

According to court documents and today’s court proceedings, in or about March 2013, Kacho solicited an undercover law enforcement agent to burn down the home of a man who, according to Kacho, had purportedly wronged him. Court records show that during a meeting on March 8, 2013, Kacho showed the undercover agent images of the victim’s home, located in South Carolina. At that meeting, Kacho told the undercover agent that he wanted the victim’s home to burn “to the ground,” and provided details to the undercover agent about using gas or petroleum in the crawl space to carry out the arson, court records indicate. On March 13, 2013, Kacho and the undercover agent met again, and over the course of that meeting, Kacho told the undercover agent he would pay him $1,000 to commit the arson, of which $300 would be paid in advance. Law enforcement arrested Kacho on March 15, 2013. He pleaded guilty in July 2013, to one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence (arson), affecting interstate commerce.

Kacho has been in custody since March 2013 arrest, and will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. Federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.

The investigation was handled by the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig D. Randall of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.

 
 
 

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