A Loudoun County District Court judge today denied a bond motion for a man charged with murder in the October 2025 fatal house fire on Riptide Square in Sterling.
Investigators determined that Jacob Bogatin, 78, intentionally started the fire under an elevated exterior wooden deck of one townhouse and the fire spread to two others. An occupant of one of the homes, Madeleine Samantha Akers, 36, died in the fire.
Bogatin is charged with felony murder, which includes an accidental killing during the commission of another felony. A conviction carries a sentence of five to 40 years in prison. He also is charged with burning or destroying an occupied dwelling, which carries a sentence of five years to life in prison…