A former Washington Township resident was convicted in a retrial of a 2011 condo arson case
The following information was provided by the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office:
Cheryl Satoris, 57, a former resident of a Washington Township condominium building heavily damaged in a 2011 fire, was convicted in a retrial this week of third-degree arson by a jury that determined she caused the fire that left her and seven other residents of the Windsor Court units homeless.
The jury deliberated about an hour before returning a guilty verdict on Wednesday, June 14. Superior Court Judge Kevin T. Smith scheduled a Sept. 29 sentencing for Satoris, who is free on bail and living in Mt. Laurel.
Satoris was convicted of the same third-degree arson offense in August 2013, sentenced to five years on probation, ordered to pay $48,000 in restitution and required to have a psychiatric evaluation. But an appeals court overturned the conviction in July 2016, finding that uncorroborated testimony about positive reactions from an accelerant-detecting dog at the fire scene should not have been presented to the jury. The case was remanded for further proceedings.
In the retrial conducted by Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Dana Anton, a neighbor of Satoris testified she had warned him there would be a fire. No one was injured in the fire, though one resident had to jump to safety from his second-floor unit. A liquid accelerant poured on the floor of the Satoris unit was the likely cause of fire damage, an arson investigator testified.
