photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Benjamin C. Roberts

A Lawrence man burned aerosol cans inside his apartment, starting a fire in a building where other tenants were sleeping, but he made no attempt to alert his neighbors, according to court documents.

Benjamin Cody Roberts, 28, was arrested July 1 and charged the next day with felony aggravated arson in connection with an incident at his apartment near Michigan and Sixth streets.

The Journal-World requested and recently received the affidavit supporting Roberts’ arrest. Allegations in an affidavit have not been proved in court.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical personnel and Lawrence police were initially dispatched to a noise complaint at 541 Michigan St. around 12:45 a.m. July 1, according to the affidavit. The reporting party said the resident of one of the apartments had been “dropping bowling balls” on the floor for the past seven hours, and that there was a strong odor of paint fumes “leaking down into their apartment.”

Residents of the apartment building “explained a pattern of fire related complaints stemming from” Roberts, the affidavit alleges. One said, for instance, that Roberts had been seen attempting to light her front door mat on fire with lit cigarettes.

Roberts reportedly told police he’d punctured an aerosol paint can and the fumes caught fire in his apartment. An LDCFM responder accompanied Roberts to his apartment to find a light haze, a strong odor of aerosol paint and a stovetop burner and the oven turned on, the affidavit alleges. The responder also found charred aerosol cans in the fireplace, and a carbon monoxide monitor produced a reading of 41 parts per million CO in the apartment where 0 ppm is considered normal.

A fire investigator who then arrived at the scene reportedly saw paint splatter along the wall of the stovetop and microwave. He collected a lighter from the stovetop, a charred aerosol paint can from the kitchen counter and three more fire-damaged aerosol cans from the fireplace, according to the affidavit.

In an interview at the Lawrence Police Department, Roberts reportedly said he had punctured the aerosol can near the kitchen sink, and the paint sprayed into a candle near the stove and ignited. He told the fire investigator that he put the can in the sink and tried to put the fire out, then used wet clothing to try to extinguish the flames. He had possible first- and second-degree burns to his left arm and fingers, according to the affidavit.

Roberts “assumed he had permission to start a fire in the apartment since there was a fire place,” the affidavit says.

The tenants of apartments next to and below his were not aware that Roberts was allegedly burning aerosol cans, and he made no attempts to alert the neighboring residents of the fire, nor did he report it to the fire department, the affidavit alleges. Rather, he “appeared to be trying to conceal the incident.”

The fire investigator wrote that the paint cans’ warning labels clearly state that the vapors could ignite explosively and they should be used only in well-ventilated areas away from any heat, sparks or flames.

The Journal-World reported previously that the fire had caused approximately $1,000 in damage to the apartment.

Roberts is scheduled to appear in Douglas County District Court next on Sept. 12, online records indicate. Hatem Chahine, his appointed attorney, did not respond to a Friday email seeking comment for this article.