A man was accused on Sunday of starting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, according to federal prosecutors.
Officials stated that Shant Soghomonian, 35, formerly of Northridge, California, broke into the building on Friday and proceeded to Sanders’ third-floor office. There, he was captured on surveillance camera dousing the door with a liquid and setting it on fire. The senator was not in the office at the time, according to sources.
Although the fire and the sprinklers going off caused some damage to the building’s interior, no one was harmed.
Soghomonian was taken into custody on Sunday on suspicion of setting fire to a structure utilized for interstate commerce, the U.S. attorney for Vermont, Nikolas Kerest, said in a statement. Officials stated that an initial court appearance had not been scheduled and that it was not immediately clear whether he had legal representation.
