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A Galesburg man was sentenced this week to 10 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for aggravated arson.
Just minutes before he was to go to a jury trial on Monday, 45-year-old Anthony J. Williams plead guilty to the Class X felony charge and was sentenced to prison, according to Knox County State’s Attorney Jeremy Karlin.
Karlin says that at the plea hearing, he recited a factual basis for the plea and stated that Williams was being held in the Knox County Jail awaiting trial on other charges when he started a fire that damaged his jail cell door.
The charge of arson was elevated to aggravated arson because there were other people in the jail at the time he started the fire.
Several lesser offenses of felony retail theft and aggravated fleeing and eluding were dismissed as part of the plea.
Williams had previously served a 14-year sentence in the IDOC for aggravated robbery.
He will be required to serve 85 percent of his sentence.
