Chesterfield Man in Court for Painting Racial Slurs on His Own Home
Mike Valerio, NBC 12 (Chesterfield), June 6, 2013
The man accused of spray-painting a racial slur on his own Chesterfield home, and then setting it on fire, will be in court Thursday.
Police are calling the act a hate crime hoax. Olander Cuthrell, 41, will be in court at 8:30 a.m. to face two felony arson charges. The first charge is for setting his home on fire with his family inside and the second is for torching his car.
Cuthrell first said he was outraged that someone could have put his wife and kids in harm’s way for no reason, but police say that anger was all just an act.
Cuthrell is a minister of music at Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Petersburg.
Police say back in March, he spray painted an offensive word on his home on the 7800 block of Little Ridge Court. He then set the porch on fire. No one was hurt, and the fires didn’t take long to put out. The FBI became involved with the Chesterfield investigation, all because of the hate crime allegations, which at this point, are gone.
