Duo Sentenced For Setting Fire To Southern Ocean Home

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, NJ — A Southern Ocean duo were both sentenced to New Jersey State Prison for setting a Little Egg Harbor house on fire, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office announced.

Ethan Salter, 20 (Little Egg Harbor) and Thomas Lester, 21 (Tuckerton) will both spend three years in prison for their intentionally set blaze on Jan. 8, 2024.

Salter was additionally sentenced to three years on a creating a false public alarm charge for calling in a fake bomb threat to the Little Egg Harbor Walmart where he formerly worked. That sentence runs concurrently to his aggravated arson charge.

Lester was sentenced to 12 months for criminal mischief relating to the aggravated arson, also to run concurrently with his three-year sentence.

It was about 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2023 when Little Egg Harbor police went to the Walmart store for the report of a bomb threat, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said. For safety, the store was evacuated. But a search of the store by the New Jersey State Police Bomb Squad and Ocean County Sheriff's Office's K-9 Unit determined that the threat was not credible, Billhimer said.

The threat had been made over the in-store handheld radios the employees use, Billhimer said. Salter, a former employee of the store, had stolen a radio and used it to make the threat, Billhimer said.

Salter was taken into custody at his home on Dec. 5, 2024.

On Jan. 8, 2024, at about 3:19 a.m., police and fire departments responded to a structure fire on National Union Boulevard in Little Egg Harbor, Billhimer said.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze and found that the fire began in the house's living room, and its cause was determined to be incendiary by an unknown person or persons utilizing an open flame to ignitable liquid, Billhimer said.

Salter and Lester were both deemed responsible and charged with aggravated arson.