Chelsea Firebug Sent to the Cooler

By IVANNA MACHUCA & DAISY WU

A man who set fire to his Chelsea apartment in 2014 was sentenced to nine years in prison and five years of post-prison supervision on Thursday after pleading guilty to second-degree arson in September.

Kevin Qu, 50, set fire to his W. 25th St. residence when he doused the apartment with two cans of gasoline and ignited with the stove lighter. The blaze tore through three residential units directly below Qu’s apartment. No one was injured and firefighters were able to extinguish the fire within an hour.

When confronted by police, Qu originally said that he was not in the building at the time of the incident and was sleeping on a park bench that night due to problems with other tenants.

When asked in Manhattan Criminal Court if he had anything to say before the sentencing, Qu simply said, “No comment”.