The 63-year-old convicted of setting three fires throughout Blount County on Nov. 7, 2024, will serve his 15-year sentence in prison, rather than on the community corrections he’d hoped.
Mark Allen Bush of Maryville pleaded guilty on Dec. 12 to starting fires at the Rural King and United Grocery Outlet in Alcoa and the Whispering River Resort campground in Walland, for which he received a total effective sentence of 15 years to serve. Beginning Wednesday, Blount County Circuit Court Judge Tammy H. Harrington heard arguments on how counsel believed the sentence should be served.
Much of Public Defender Candice Garder’s argument centered around establishing cause to enact a portion of the Public Safety Act of 2016, which allows a judge to order a sentence be served through “an available and appropriate community-based alternative to incarceration.” Bush, Gardner argued, fit the profile for an offender who would benefit from the Blount County Community Corrections Program as an individual who had shown remorse and significant personal growth and mental health stabilization while incarcerated…