A man charged with setting fire to an East Lansing Ramada Inn, 1100 Trowbridge Road is being sent back to Virginia after he violated his parole with a trip to Michigan, police say.
Sean McCoy, 35, was living in Virginia under probation for a 1993 grand larceny and forgery conviction and was not supposed to leave the state.
McCoy, was charged for setting the fire to the hotel in November, causing enough damage to shut the hotel down.
At the time of the fire, McCoy was working as a utility worker at the hotel.
"For all intensive purposes if Virginia wants him, they'll get him," said David Merchant, McCoy's former attorney. "It shows he's cooperating to go back."
By violating parole, McCoy could face two years in prison in addition to possible time for the November fire. He is being held in Ingham County Jail until the trip to Virginia can be arranged.
McCoy has been charged with the second of three fires at the hotel. Fire officials said the first fire was determined accidental and investigators haven't determined the cause of the third.
The fire McCoy is charged with, which came a few weeks after the first, broke out in a motel room being used for storage.
The charge for the fire is a felony carrying 20 years in prison.
When the second fire started, the hotel was being renovated as a result of the first fire, which caused more than $300,000 in damage near the main lobby.
No guests were staying at the north end of the hotel. It was closed to the public after the first blaze Oct. 15.
The second was under control in eight minutes and was extinguished in about 15 minutes.
Two men working on the building's plumbing broke storage room windows and tried to put out the fire with extinguishers before firefighters arrived.
McCoy became the center of police investigation, East Lansing police Lt. Kim Johnson said, after interviews with witnesses.
"There was nothing that really stood out that pinpointed him," Johnson said. "He didn't say, 'I did it,' but all of our evidence we gathered was enough to get a warrant for him."
