UW Arson suspect pleads not guilty

TACOMA – A man charged in the 2001 arson at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture has pleaded not guilty to federal charges.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleges that 31-year-old Justin Solondz built the firebombs that started the $6 million blaze in Seattle. At a Wednesday hearing in federal court in Tacoma, he entered pleas to charges including conspiracy, arson and using a destructive device in a violent crime.

Solondz was arrested July 6 in Chicago following his expulsion from China, where he had been serving a prison sentence on drug charges.