BOSTON — A Hartford, Connecticut, man has been charged in federal court in Boston with setting three fires in Swampscott and Marlborough, Massachusetts, in the early morning hours of Oct. 7, including one that burned a U.S. Postal Service vehicle, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said Tuesday.

Haroldo Rodrigues-Jardim Neto, 28, also known as "Jardim," is charged with two counts of arson of a building or vehicle used in interstate commerce and one count of arson of federal government property, prosecutors said. He is being held in Connecticut on unrelated state charges and is scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston on Nov. 12.

According to charging documents, Rodrigues-Jardim Neto drove from Connecticut to Swampscott, where he is accused of setting fire to the front porch of a multifamily rental house at about 2:04 a.m. Prosecutors said a nearby doorbell camera captured the moment the fire was started.

He then went to Marlborough, prosecutors said, where surveillance video at a gas station showed him filling a portable gasoline can that had been kept in his car. At about 3:14 a.m., he is accused of setting fire to a privately owned Mercedes-Benz parked outside a Marlborough home. Prosecutors said he then went to a nearby Postal Service building, where he was seen setting fire to a postal vehicle using what appeared to be the same gasoline can.

The arson charges carry a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 20 years in prison. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case.

The charges are allegations, and Rodrigues-Jardim Neto is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

This brief was drafted by AI from a public agency or political press release and published by The New England Signal. Why we use AI for stories like this one.