SAN DIEGO — A 21-year-old sailor was acquitted at a military court-martial Friday on charges accusing him of setting the devastating 2020 fire on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard.
Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays was charged with aggravated arson and the willful hazarding of a vessel in July 2021, more than a year after the blaze on board the $1.2 billion ship, which was moored at Naval Base San Diego at the time. The fire caused so much damage the Navy chose to sell the vessel for scrap.
Testimony and argument in the two-week trial — located in a military courtroom just 1,000 feet from the pier where the Bonhomme Richard had been moored when it burned — wrapped up Thursday morning. Capt. Derek Butler, the military judge overseeing the trial, began deliberating just before 11 a.m. Pacific time Thursday and returned with his verdict at 9:22 a.m. Friday.
