BY David Castellon
The Tulare Advance-Register
TULARE, Calif. — A Tulare man who pleaded no contest to setting a series of Sierra foothills wildfires that led to the 2006 death of a pilot and firefighter in a plane crash was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison.
Tulare County Superior Court Judge James Hollman handed down the sentence in a Visalia courtroom packed with more than 70 people, more than half of them firefighters and other members of CAL FIRE and the U.S. Department of Forestry.
In early March, Patrick Ryan Courtney, 31, entered a deal with prosecutors to plead to four counts of causing wildland fires. Courtney was accused of setting a series of fires in the Bear Creek Drainage near Balch Park between Sept. 3 and 6.
Full story: Prosecutors dropped murder charges in exchange for the no-contest pleas