A Father’s ​“Help”

Hector Morales didn’t set the fire that killed three family members in Fair Haven. He played the role of father, as he saw it — which has now landed him a jail sentence of 14 and a half years.

On Thursday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton sentenced Morales to 14.5 years in prison, with supervised release for three years.

Morales was convicted of assisting his son Hector Natal in dealing cocaine, marijuana and other substances, driving him to deals and warning him when he thought police were watching.

Then Natal (who is 28) committed a triple-murder arson that many in New Haven will never forget. He set an early-morning fire at a multi-family house in Fair Haven in the early hours of March 9, 2011, in retaliation for an unpaid drug debt.

His father, Morales, stood by him, and helped. He drove his son from the scene of the crime in the family van. Morales later painted the van blue and intimidated witnesses who were slated to testify before the grand jury.

Natal himself is scheduled to be sentenced next month for committing the act. Thursday’s sentencing of Morales in U.S. District Court on Church Street raised the question of where a father’s responsibilities lie when his son goes so horribly wrong.

On April 18, 2013, Morales was convicted on seven counts: one each of conspiracy to sell drugs, conspiracy to tamper with witnesses, witness tampering, alteration of evidence, as well as three counts of accessory to arson — one for each person killed in the fire.

8‑year-old Clinton Avenue School student Quayshawn Roberson (pictured), his mother Wanda and his cousin Jaquetta died trying to escape 48 – 50 Wolcott St. on March 9, 2011. Their extended family members filled three rows of the court Thursday; Quayshawn’s father and two other family members addressed the judge.

“Today is my birthday. I didn’t expect to be in court on my birthday. It hurts to see that he’s not here,” Lawrence Alexander said about his son.

The defense and prosecution presented opposing views of Morales, respectively, as a caring head of household and as an enabler of his son’s criminality. Natal was convicted of arson and is due to be sentenced. Morales said he is innocent of all charges.

“Yo soy inocente. If I would’ve been able to get dressed and go downstairs, I would have given my life for this family. I was not there. I was sleeping. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for the father. I am innocent,” he said.

One Arson, Three Victims

Morales’ defense attorney, William Paetzold, argued that Morales was fulfilling his duties as a father, not breaking the law: ​“Mr. Morales drove him because that was his function in the family. Did he say to his son, ​‘Be careful out there. There’s police presence in this neighborhood’? That’s what any parent would say. It doesn’t mean he’s complicit.”

The charges are too harsh and do not take into account Morales’ lack of prior offenses and positive history, Paetzold said.

He argued that the three counts of accessory to arson should be condensed into one, since Morales was convicted for driving his son from the scene of the fire, not for setting it. Paetzold compared the crime to drug dealing. A dealer would be sentenced based on overall societal harm, not based on a calculation of total customers. ​“Based on that, I would submit that the individual victims would be the societal harm of assisting the perpetrator from the scene of a crime,” he said.

But the prosecution disagreed.

“The guidelines are clear that you would not aggregate human lives as you would with drugs or money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gustafson, said.

“It wasn’t three arsons. It was one arson. A single transaction,” Paetzold responded. ​“He assisted his son in leaving the scene of the arson, not three arsons.”

Judge Arterton agreed with the prosecution. Despite the defense’s ​“interesting argument,” she said, ​“the fact that it is a single arson and not three separate arsons is a bit of a semantic difference, since the fire killed each of the three victims. I think that the way the probation officer has grouped these three separate accessory crimes is the correct analysis.”

Painting The Story

Morales deserved to go to prison for anywhere between 14.5 and 17 years, because he was willing to repeatedly violate the law for his son, the prosecution argued.

“He literally drove the criminality, Your Honor,” by driving his son away from an act of arson, Gustafson said.

“How often are we in a case where drug dealing is a throwaway offense?” he said. ​“A father’s love would be to stop the person from dealing drugs or committing a crime. The other two crimes, accessory and obstruction, are more serious in this case.”

Morales was convicted of tampering with evidence, because he painted his van from blue to black after the arson. Jessica Feliciano, his son’s girlfriend at the time, testified in past proceedings that Morales told everyone to lie about the reason he had painted the van — to say he had done it because his brother-in-law wanted to buy it.

Paetzold argued Thursday that Feliciano’s testimony was based on her interpretation of Morales’ actions, meaning there was ​“reasonable doubt” as to whether Morales had ever conspired to tamper evidence. He said that doubt extended to much of the court proceeding that led to Morales’ conviction, arguing that many witnesses were untrustworthy or may have been pressured into making statements.

“Certainly the jury has spoken. We all know that often just because a jury has spoken doesn’t mean the person is guilty of the underlying offense,” he said. But Judge Arterton said she refused to ​“buy [his] characterization of incompetence.”

Morales’ daughters spoke up for him Thursday, further arguing his innocence.

“I’m truly sorry of the loss. I know my father and brother are innocent. I will be calling Project Innocence to investigate this so they could have justice for my father and my brother,” Jessica Morales said.

“I’m standing here to say that my father and brother are innocent and I will not stop fighting for them. All these lies against my family; one day you will see that they are innocent. We have suffered just like [the Roberson family members] have suffered,” Brenda Morales said. She passed her father’s chair as she went back to her seat with a simple, ​“I love you, Papa.”

“A Burning Birthday”

At the time of the fire, fifteen members of two different families lived at 48 – 50 Wolcott St., including two young pregnant women, several children and two elderly women.

“Most of my cousins jumped from the second-story window,” including the pregnant women, recalled Jamaica Roberson, who lived in a house around the corner with other extended family members.

Jamaica, who is 20, addressed the court Thursday to describe the events of March 9, 2011 — her birthday. Currently studying criminal justice at Gateway Community College, she read aloud an essay called ​“A Burning Birthday,” which she had submitted to a professor.

Usually, she said, her mother woke her up early on her birthday to yell, ​“Happy birthday to my Jamaican baby!” On her 17th birthday, her mother ​“knocked down the door to yell: ​‘Wanda’s house is on fire,’” Jamaica said. ​“My cousin Quayvon, who is nine, was the first out of the burning house. He jumped from the second-story window and ran in his underwear and shorts. He stood on my front porch and shivered.”

Jamaica and her mother ran around the corner and saw her ​“beloved aunt’s house was set ablaze with flames so strong and smoke so thick.” She recalled that ​“everybody including my grandmother was barefoot” in the cold.

“My mother asked ​‘Where’s Wanda?’ as she noticed her little sister was not among us,” Jamaica said. ​“She passed out in front of me from the shock, because at that second, she knew that mourning time was upon us. I was able to hold her up and keep her on her feet.”

Wanda Roberson, who was 41, rushed to the third floor to save her son Quayshawn and her niece Jaquetta. She found Jaquetta covering the eight-year-old with her body to protect him from the fire. All three died, unable to escape the house. Firefighters and neighbors caught several women who jumped or handed down children from the second-floor porch.

Eleven people were rescued from the fire and taken to the hospital to be treated. Jamaica stayed home to watch over her siblings. The family had to answer questions throughout the early morning, because ​“not everyone was accounted for.” She said it hurt to watch the videos posted on news sites of her family screaming for help before firefighters arrived on scene. ​“I watched the flames that took their lives in horror,” she said, ​“scarring every birthday to come.”

Sentenced

The judge sentenced him to 14.5 years, in the middle of the prosecution’s recommended range. She ignored Morales’ claims of innocence, saying that the sentencing hearing is ​“not the place” for that appeal.

“The word ​‘serious’ is an understatement,” she said, to describe ​“the nature of the offenses, namely assisting his son in his escape from the crime he had committed of arson and then making every effort to avoid the law.”

Morales’ actions ​“produced, as demonstrated today, a loss, a sorrow, an injury to far more than the three innocents who died,” she said. ​“It is a life trauma of unthinkable proportions. It is a senseless tragedy of profound dimensions. As Jamaica Roberson said, no one knows how to comfort so much pain.”

Judge Arterton also took into account the defense’s statements about Morales’ character. He is a 52-year-old man with no prior criminal history, ​“little education, little literacy, little employment, because of injuries, and serious medical problems.” Morales has had no substance abuse problem and ​“family has been his focus,” she said, which led her to waive drug testing. She also waived the fine, ​“given his modest financial circumstances,” though he may have to pay for the Roberson family’s funeral costs.

“The question of whether Mr. Morales would be likely to offend to help a family member remains an open question, but perhaps an academic one, because the son he attempted to protect will be sentenced soon and has an anticipated term of imprisonment.”

The sentencing should promote ​“respect for the law,” as the prosecution argued, Arterton said. In case ​“other fathers in similar positions might act as he did, public protection from further crimes is a consideration for sentencing.”

Morales has 14 days from the entry of judgment to file an appeal with the court.