Damaging Motel Fire Lands Berks County Man With Hefty Financial Restitution

POTTSTOWN, PA — A Berks County man is on the hook for a hefty financial restitution after a Montgomery County judge sentenced him in connection with a case involving a damaging motel fire in Pottstown Borough last fall.

Russell Hess, III, 50, of Hamburg, Pa., received a sentence of 11-and-one-half to 23 months in county prison after pleading guilty to a felony count of recklessly causing a catastrophe, along with an additional sentence of three years' probation.

Sentencing was imposed on Sept. 21 by Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas M. DelRicci, according to court records in the case.

Hess had been confined at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility since his arrest in September 2021, the same month and year as the motel fire, and the judge said Hess would receive credit for time served, according to a report in the Mercury newspaper.

Court records in the case show that Hess had originally been charged with 86 felony arson-related counts and a whole host of misdemeanors in connection with the Sept. 25, 2021, fire at the America's Best Value Motel on East High Street in Pottstown.

Those counts were dismissed in exchange for Hess pleading guilty to the felony charge of causing a catastrophe.

The Mercury reported that the fire was started in the room rented by Hess, and that witnesses reportedly told investigators that Hess had been acting erratically and may have been under the influence of some sort of substance when he allegedly began the fire in the area of the motel bed.

The story says that detectives got their hands on surveillance footage from the motel showing Hess before and during the fire.

The paper also reported that Hess was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $237,372 in connection with the damages sustained by the hotel during the arson incident.