Arlington Man Sentenced for Arson at Islamic Playground

An Arlington man was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for setting fire to an Islamic center's playground in July 2010.

Henry Clay Glaspell pleaded guilty to the ethnically motivated arson of the children's playground at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington.

Glaspell admitted to setting the fire, stealing and damaging mosque property, throwing used cat litter at the mosque and shouting racial and ethnic slurs at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern decent at the mosque.

"The defendant targeted Arab-Americans at a mosque where families worship peacefully and children play," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division in a press release. "The Justice Department is committed to vigorously prosecuting hate crimes against all persons, and incidents of this kind will not be tolerated in our country."

Glaspell has been out on bond and was ordered to surrender to prison in late November of this year.