Landlord who was angry at tenant suspected of setting fire to home

Police arrested a landlord suspected of setting fire to his Perry District home Tuesday afternoon after a dispute with a roommate – a convicted child rapist who spent 18 years in prison. Dee Farmin, 44, is accused of pouring gasoline on the floor of the home on the 1700 block of East 12th Avenue and setting it on fire after becoming enraged with his roommate tenants – including Harold David Werstein, who he suspected of placing cameras about the house to film him naked. No one was hurt, including a woman who was in the basement of the home during the brief fire. Farmin has been charged with arson. Werstein raped a 13-year-old stranger in Lewis County in 1990. He is a level 3 sex offender, the classification considered most likely to reoffend, and moved to Spokane five years ago. Police described Farmin as angry and threatening toward Werstein. Farmin claimed to police that Werstein “had been torturing him for the past three weeks.” He said he became frustrated, “freaked out,” and tried to set his house on fire.