Two Cumberland County men implicated in the arson of a residence with one man then filing an insurance claim for personal property loss entered guilty pleas in Criminal Court Tuesday.
The arson charge against one man was dropped, and he pleaded guilty to unrelated charges.
Vernon Keith Hughes, 65, charged with arson and insurance fraud, pleaded guilty to a Class F felony of arson and received a three-year suspended sentence with one year to serve and the balance on supervised probation.
He is a Range 1 offender, so the sentence will be served at 75%. The charge of insurance fraud of more than $2,500 was dropped.
The indictment charges Hughes with setting fire to a rear bedroom of a residence that had been occupied on a land contract but where he no longer lived on July 6, 2024.
He is also accused of setting fire to contents in the bedroom that he claimed belonged to him.
The incident was investigated by Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, Cumberland County Fire Department, TBI Special Agents Nick Hamby and Shawn Scott and Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Agents Lucas Spear and Michael Walton.
Also charged with arson was James Daniel Cumby, 39, as well as unrelated charges of probation violations, burglary, theft of property of up to $1,000 and vandalism of up to $1,000.
The arson charge against Cumby was dropped as a result of his guilty plea in an unrelated case.
Cumby pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary and a probation violation charge.
As a Range II offender, Cumby agreed to an eight-year sentence with one year to serve in jail at 35% and the balance on supervised probation. He has credit for 218 days already served in jail.
The burglaries Cumby pleaded guilty to involved storage units investigated by Crossville Police Department in February of this year.
Property reported stolen was recovered at a location on Woody Court.