College student Neil Gajare, arrested and charged with arson, posted $5,000 bail yesterday and is awaiting a preliminary hearing.
The hearing is scheduled for April 29.
The 22-year-old is being charged with arson and four related offenses in connection with a fire in Rodin College House early Wednesday morning. Two of the charges - arson and causing catastrophe - are felonies.
University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said Gajare currently remains a Penn student, pending the outcome of his disciplinary process. He has restricted access at Penn and is not allowed to be on campus without prior approval.
Gajare, a Biochemistry student who lived on the 22nd floor of Rodin, allegedly started the fire at about 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Police say he stood in the elevator bank on his floor, sprayed a can of butane and lit the chemical on fire with a cigarette lighter, inflaming material in a nearby recycling bin.
Water from the sprinkler system extinguished the fire but caused damage to all four elevators and property throughout Rodin. The building was evacuated at 2:13 a.m., and no injuries were reported. One of the four elevators has since been fixed, but the others are still not in use.
One-third of all dormitory fires are set deliberately, according to a 2001 publication by the U.S. Fire Administration.
Gajare previously attended Northwestern University, where he faced charges related to anti-Semitic graffiti in a Northwestern dormitory in January 2006.
He was charged with institutional vandalism and felony criminal damage to property after he allegedly drew anti-Semitic statements, two Swastikas and a rabbit on dormitory walls and in a stairwell, according to The Daily Northwestern.
Northwestern spokesman Charles Loebbaka said information about his departure from the school could not be released because of privacy laws.
University City has seen relatively few arsons in the past several years.
There were two in 2002 and one in each year from 2005 to 2007.
The January 2007 incident gutted a house located at 210 S. 41st St. The investigation was called off eight months later because of lack of evidence.
The arson in March 2006 occurred at 4042 Sansom St. and sent seven students, six of them from Penn, to the hospital. That investigation, too, was called off after a month, pending new evidence.
Arson is also the third-leading cause of fire injuries on college campuses, after cooking and careless smoking.
There were 32,500 arsons in 2007 in the United States, causing 295 deaths and $733 million in damage, according to the USFA.
