GREEN BAY – A 61-year-old Green Bay man who investigators called “a serial arsonist” was sentenced to nine years in prison for starting a fire at storage unit facility in Green Bay in 2021.
Thomas Smith II pleaded no contest in May to arson of a building without the owner’s consent, possession of burglary tools and resisting or obstructing an officer for the fire at Lok-Safe Storage, located at 1610 Stiles Road in Green Bay, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to at least 34 storage units.
Smith was also sentenced Feb. 8 for starting a string of fires in May 2021, while the storage unit arson investigation was underway. He pleaded no contest in May to two counts of arson of property other than a building, one count of theft of moveable property and one count of burglary of a building or dwelling. Those sentences run concurrent to the nine years for the storage unit fire.
A no contest plea means Smith accepted a guilty verdict without admitting or denying any guilt.
According to two criminal complaints, investigators discovered Smith has been tied to numerous fires in Wisconsin and Ohio dating back to the 1980s. He was under investigation after the trailer fire in March 2021, but was not arrested until he was tied to a string of other fires, and gas and mail thefts that May.