A Rhode Island man is prepared to plead guilty on 7 January to lighting several fires just outside a predominantly Black church nearly a year earlier, federal court documents show.
Kevin Colantonio, 36, ignited the blazes around Shiloh Gospel Temple’s exterior in North Providence during the early morning of 11 February because of the “race, color, religion, national origin and/or ethnicity of the congregants there”, according to a plea agreement filed on 20 December. Investigators said most of the worshippers at the Pentecostal church, which has existed for about 35 years, are Black and African American.
