At the time, some in the community speculated that the blaze was a hate crime. Joly is a noted transgender activist in his community who had worked for the American Red Cross, served as director of the Jackson Pride Center and had recently helped organize a local pride march before the blaze.

AD

The police investigation led them to a different conclusion. About a year after the house burned down, prosecutors charged Joly with first-degree arson.

AD

The case has recently gained more attention after charges were filed against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who has been accused by police of faking a hate crime to increase his profile. The two cases are being linked in some news reports because of the LGBT identities of the accused and the accusations leveled against them.

Joly, whose lawyer said he is innocent, will appear in court next week as his defense files a motion to suppress evidence.

A police report obtained by MLive.com in 2018 lays out numerous pieces of evidence against Joly. A neighbor who spoke to Joly that day said he smelled of gasoline. Security cameras captured him filling a gas can at Marathon gas station that day, and cellphone records indicate Joly briefly returned to the house just before 911 calls about a fire at the house. As firefighters responded to the blaze, they noticed fires continued to ignite after being extinguished, a sign that an accelerant was present, and a police dog later detected gasoline in several areas of the home.

AD

AD

The report also says Joly was in the process of purchasing the house from its owner through a land contract but did not own the home.

The timing of the fire had raised concerns among supporters of the couple, who are now married. “He knows that he is a target. And that is a hard way to live,” his friend Kim Cwynar said in 2017. “And yet, he perseveres, every single day. Stepping up to the plate, standing up for others, speaking up for others.”

Now, some members of the local community are frustrated with Joly.

“It’s embarrassing,” Travis Trombley, a gay resident, told the Detroit News. “How do you do it to the community you have put so much effort into helping?”

AD

But police, prosecutors and Joly’s attorney say hate crimes did not play a significant role in the case, and that Joly did not claim he had been the victim of one.

AD

"Within a relatively short period of time, the FBI found it wasn’t a hate crime,” Jackson County prosecutor Jerard M. Jarzynka told The Washington Post. “Our prosecution theory is that it was not a hate crime, it was an arson case and animal cruelty case.”

Joly’s lawyer Andrew Abood claims “the prosecutor is trying to make a case when one does not exist.”

“When you look at the proof that’s been put out, it was more coincidence than anything else,” he said. “And there was clearly an absence of motive on the part of my client."