Rosemont woman gets 4 years for setting ex-boyfriend’s apartment on fire
After her boyfriend kicked her out, Maria Bustamante returned to his apartment, put a fuel-soaked rag under the door, lit it on fire and ran.
A DuPage County judge on Wednesday sentenced the Rosemont woman to four years in prison for the Feb. 20 arson, which evacuated a three-story apartment building in Woodridge.
Bustamante, 30, set the early morning blaze after her boyfriend broke up with her and put some of her belongings out with the trash, according to court records. She told police she “wanted to scare” the victim, who was away at work when the fire was set, but had “no intention of harming anyone.”
Prosecutors said Bustamante admitted she was drunk when she set the fire about 3 a.m. after stopping at a filling station to soak a piece of cloth in gasoline.
No injuries were reported to anyone inside the roughly 45-unit building on the 7300 block of Woodward Avenue. But several residents were evacuated, and damage was estimated at $25,000.
Firefighters recognized the blaze as suspicious almost immediately, identifying burn patterns from an accelerant. Authorities said Bustamante confessed in an interview after initially denying involvement.
Bustamante pleaded guilty to residential arson in July and was sentenced by Judge John Kinsella. Had she been convicted of aggravated arson as originally charged, she could have faced up to 30 years.
Bustamante faces deportation upon her release from prison because she is not a legal resident of the U.S., prosecutors said.