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Christopher Baulch, 43, has an extensive criminal history that includes prison time served for torching two occupied Lyndhurst apartment buildings in 2000 – one on Christmas Eve, the other on New Year’s Eve – and then trying to play hero, records show.
“In both cases, he went to help the people,” the sentencing judge in Hackensack said at the time.
Baulch -- formerly of Lyndhurst and currently of Wayne – also has a child endangerment conviction, as well as multiple parole violations, records show.
Borough firefighters doused the engulfed Ford Escape fire at the intersection of Valley Brook Avenue and Cleveland Avenue shortly after 9:30 p.m. last Thursday, May 12, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
They’d been called by Baulch, who apparently didn’t know whose vehicle it was, responders said.
An investigation by members of Musella’s Arson Squad and their Lyndhurst police colleagues “revealed that [he] had intentionally set the fire,” the prosecutor said.
Baulch, who is married and unemployed, was arrested at his Minns Avenue home this past Tuesday.
He remained held Thursday in the Bergen County Jail pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack on charges of aggravated arson and causing or risking widespread injury or damage.
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