Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
HEARING SCHEDULED Student Charged with Arson In Burton House Fire An MIT student has been charged by Cambridge police with arson following a fire Friday, Jan. 18, in a Burton suite where the student and five others were residents. The student, Steven H. Baden, a junior in management from Framingham, was arrested the afternoon of January 18 following an investigation by the Cambridge police and fire departments of the blaze that began shortly after 6am. Mr. Baden was released after posting bail. The case was continued to February 4 for a pre-trial hearing before Judge Arthur Sherman. A spokesman in the office of the Middlesex district attorney told the MIT News Office that during the bail hearing January 18 a prosecutor alleged that the fire was the culmination of a long-standing disagreement between Mr. Baden and another resident of the dormitory suite and that there was no anti-semitic element to the incident. A condition of the bail was that Mr. Baden agree to stay away from the other student, the prosecutor's spokesman said. The suite is known as the Kosher Suite because the kitchen there is kept kosher. The suite traditionally is occupied by kosher-observing Jewish students. The kitchen supplements the Institute's kosher dining plan and is frequently used by other students who prepare and eat kosher meals there. Mr. Baden was given permission by Campus Police on Tuesday, January 22, to remove his belongings from the suite and move off campus. Cambridge Fire Department investigators said the fire was caused by pouring a flammable liquid on the carpet in the suite corridor and then igniting it. None of the six people in the Burton House dormitory suite at the time of the fire--five residents and one guest, all men--was injured. There were about 175 people in the six-story brick dormitory at 410 Memorial Drive at the time of the fire and most left the building when an automatic fire alarm sounded when the sprinklers went off. One dormitory resident, a senior from Rancho Palos Verde, Calif., fell while evacuating the building, MIT Campus Police said. She was taken to Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, and transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was treated for a broken jaw, the hospital reported. The Cambridge Fire Department, which responded to an alarm sounded at 6:15am, found that the Burton sprinkler system had suppressed the fire. Michael S. Mills, general manager of maintenance and renovations in Housing and Food Service, said there was no structural damage from the fire. A portion of the carpet and an adjoining wall in the suite were scorched, he said. There was substantial water damage and smoke damage on the second floor and substantial water damage on the floor below to ceilings, walls and carpeting, Mr. Mills said.