{"id":23284,"date":"2025-03-03T20:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T03:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/charges-dismissed-against-durango-man-accused-of-arson\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:32:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:32:54","slug":"charges-dismissed-against-durango-man-accused-of-arson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/charges-dismissed-against-durango-man-accused-of-arson\/","title":{"rendered":"Charges dismissed against Durango man accused of arson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fire
Fire was set to a bag of chips on aisle No. 7 of south City Market on Oct. 5. Brad Clark, an associate professor at Fort Lewis College, has been charged in connection with the arson.<\/span>Bret Hauff\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The 6th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office has dropped all charges against Bradley Clark, a Durango man accused of setting fire to the chip aisle in the south City Market more than five years ago.<\/p>\n

The decision came after the most recent mistrial<\/a>, which concluded in early February, when a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. It was the second mistrial in a case that was tried three times.<\/p>\n

Clark was arrested in 2019 after a fire broke out in the snack aisle of City Market\u2019s south Durango location, causing more than $76,000 in damages. Investigators alleged that Clark deliberately ignited the fire, though no surveillance footage captured the incident.<\/p>\n

District Attorney Sean Murray said prosecutors decided to dismiss the case after speaking with jurors, who identified a lack of surveillance footage as a significant challenge in reaching a verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sort of formed our discussion with City Market about, you know, is it a good use of our time and resources to go forward again,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 28, all charges against Clark, 52, were formally dismissed.<\/p>\n

The dismissal ends an almost six-year legal battle for Clark.<\/p>\n

After serving two years of a four-year prison sentence, the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 2023. The court ruled that evidence of Clark\u2019s prior arrest had been improperly introduced during his trial.<\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s wife, Terisa Clark, said in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em> that Clark has maintained his innocence throughout the entirety of his legal battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiberty has been restored to Dr. Clark\u2019s life, and he is set to resume his important work as a writer, teacher and researcher of environmental protection in the American West,\u201d she said. \u201cHe anticipates reconnecting with his family and those who supported him during this difficult ordeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Bradley Clark or his wife were not immediately successful Monday.<\/p>\n

jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bradley Clark, 52, spent two years in prison in connection with fire at City Market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,741,2549,133,168,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-arson","tag-city-market","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78052,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23284\/revisions\/78052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23284"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}