By Gabriel Ani
WIGGINS, Miss. (chatnewstv.com) — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for vandalizing and setting fire to a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building, a crime prosecutors said was motivated by religious hatred.
Stefan Day Rowold, 37, of Wiggins, was sentenced Tuesday to 360 months in prison after a federal jury convicted him of six counts of arson and civil rights violations following a September 2025 trial in the Southern District of Mississippi, the Justice Department said.
“Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of the defendant’s reprehensible conduct,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Anyone who attacks a house of worship in America will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Prosecutors said Rowold targeted the Mormon church in Wiggins because of animosity toward what he believed were the congregation’s religious views. Evidence at trial showed that Rowold broke into the church on July 5 and July 7, 2024, vandalized the interior with hateful messages and set multiple fires in an attempt to destroy the building.
Authorities said Rowold used hymnals, paintings and other religious objects as kindling during the first fire, which he ignited in a multipurpose room. After learning the blaze did not burn down the building, he returned two days later, broke in again after police had attempted to secure the site, and set a second fire against an interior wall, prosecutors said.
Rowold later confessed to police, authorities said.
The fires caused extensive damage and forced church members to suspend services in the building for several months. At sentencing, the court ordered Rowold to pay $176,564 in restitution to the church.
U.S. Attorney Baxter Kruger for the Southern District of Mississippi said the sentence underscored the federal government’s commitment to protecting religious freedom. The case was announced jointly by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI’s Jackson Field Office.
The investigation was led by the FBI, with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal and the Wiggins Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Buckner and Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Chloe Neely.
