WEST MIAMI, Fla. – A West Miami man faced arson and criminal mischief charges after police said he purposely set his mobile home on fire, damaging others in the process early Monday morning.
According to an arrest report from the Miami-Dade Police Department, a witness called 911 at around 1:40 a.m. to report that Roberto Angel Cardenosa’s mobile home at the Sunnyside Trailer Park, located in the 6000 block of Southwest Eighth Street, was on fire.
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Police said the witness saw Cardenosa, 58, “light the contents of a large metal dumpster on fire before walking out of sight.”
The arrest report states that the witness recognized Cardenosa and knew he lived in the burning trailer.
Two West Miami police officers arrived minutes later and, in the midst of evacuating nearby trailers, saw Cardenosa standing in the middle of the road “with a purple stick lighter in his right hand,” the report states.
Police said the officers also recognized Cardenosa and tried to speak with him, but he walked away and dropped the lighter; they later caught up with him.
The report states that Cardenosa declined to speak with a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue investigator, who later determined the blaze was set intentionally.
The fire “destroyed” Cardenosa’s mobile home and caused heat damage to nearby trailers, police said. They said additional evidence connected him to the crime.
“A nearby neighbor has surveillance cameras which captured the defendant (Cardenosa) rummaging through a nearby dumpster approximately five minutes prior to the fire,” the arresting officer wrote. “The defendant removed what appeared to be large cardboard pizza boxes and walked towards his trailer.”
Cardenosa, a Cuban national, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on an $11,000 bond as of late Tuesday morning, according to jail records.