STONINGTON, Maine — A local man has pleaded guilty in federal court to setting fire to another man’s lobster boat, according to a federal prosecutor.

Jeremy Eaton, 39, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for setting the fire, which destroyed the fishing boat Heritage on the night of April 16, 2014, according to documents on file in the publicly accessible online document database for U.S. District Court in Bangor.





In a prepared statement released late Friday, the U.S attorney’s office for Maine said that on the night of the fire, Eaton walked to the harbor in Stonington, removed gasoline cans from a skiff tied to a dock and then used a small boat to ferry himself and the gas cans to a fiberglass lobster boat moored in the harbor.

“Eaton then emptied the cans of gasoline into the lobster boat and started a fire which destroyed the boat,” federal prosecutors wrote in the release. “Eaton later admitted that he had burned the boat.”

Neither the release nor court documents indicate a motive for the arson.

Eaton is expected to be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office. The fire investigation was conducted by the state fire marshal’s office and the U.S. Coast Guard.