The founding father of Continental Automotive Group in Austin, Texas, has been charged in reference to 4 fires
- Austin businessman and dealership group proprietor Bryan Hardeman is dealing with a number of felony arson fees.
- Authorities consider that he set hearth to numerous properties that he at one level wished to purchase.
- That is his second arrest this yr associated to arson and he’s awaiting a court docket date on June 12.
Residents of Austin, Texas probably know of the companies that Bryan Hardeman co-founded within the Nineteen Sixties. He’s one of many males behind Continental Automotive which owns a number of dealerships for Subaru, Mercedes, Audi, Honda, Infiniti, Jeep, and extra.
Regardless of retiring in 2017, it seems as if the 75-year-old isn’t content material to take a seat at house and luxuriate in his wealth. He’s now dealing with fees associated to a number of fires, which the Austin Hearth Division (AFD) alleges had been deliberately set.
Authorities first arrested Hardeman on February 29 on fees of felony arson and housebreaking. That got here in response to a hearth set at a closed bike store in downtown Austin. Video from the scene reportedly reveals an older man stroll in with a can of gasoline, pour it all through the property, after which set it ablaze earlier than watching it for a while. Safety cameras additionally present the arsonist leaving the scene in a white Mercedes-Benz SUV.
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Jeffrey Deane, captain of the hearth division’s arson investigation department on the time, offered a press release to AutoNews. “This individual that we acknowledged as Hardeman [was] carrying a pink container, you realize, in keeping with the form of a five-gallon gasoline container contained in the constructing and pouring a liquid, some kind of liquid accelerant after which shortly after doing that, dropping the matches, and igniting that liquid and beginning the hearth,” Deane stated relating to digicam footage of the Feb. 25 arson. “He spent about 10 minutes in there, which was a reasonably good period of time in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon.”
Now, authorities have arrested Hardeman again, this time on Wednesday, April 24 on two counts of first-degree felony arson and one depend of second-degree felony arson. They consider he’s in charge for a hearth on Christmas day, one other on February seventeenth, and another on February twentieth.
In every case, the goal gave the impression to be one associated to property that Hardeman was thinking about shopping for at one time. Will Hardeman, Bryan’s son and managing companion of Continental Automotive, stated in response to his father’s arrest, “though these allegations are very severe, we’re nonetheless attempting to type reality from fiction.”
Picture Credit score: KVUE
