ANCOUVER - A British Columbia provincial court has heard a man who set fire to three Masonic halls did so because voices were telling him to burn the buildings down.
Benjamin Kohlman, 43, pleaded guilty in September to arson charges for setting three fires within an hour, two in North Vancouver and one in Vancouver.
Both Crown counsel and Kohlman's defence lawyer told court he targeted Masonic halls in an attempt to stop the "Illuminati using mind control."
Crown attorney Jonas Dow asked for a prison sentence up to five years, while the defence called for a two- to three-year sentence.
The judge was expected to hand down a sentence later Monday.
Kohlman's lawyer, Jessica Dawkins, told the court her client set the fires early in the morning so no one would be harmed.
"This was about bringing attention, not harming anyone," Dawkins said.
Dow agreed, adding the fires were not motivated by revenge or hate as many arson cases are.
"It should be clear this is a mental health situation brought on by Mr. Kohlman's substance misuse," he told the court.
Kohlman appeared at the sentencing hearing via video link and declined to address the court, asking his lawyer to speak for him.
The first fire call at 6:45 a.m. on March 30 came in for a blaze at the Lynn Valley Lodge in North Vancouver, while a second fire reported minutes later severely damaged a Masonic centre a few kilometres away.
Fire officials said the third fire at a Masonic hall in east Vancouver was reported about an hour later. That fire caused little damage.
Kohlman was spotted leaving the third Masonic hall by an off-duty police officer who attempted to arrest him.
The court heard Kohlman was "unfazed" by the police officer drawing a gun on him and was able to escape before being tracked down in Burnaby, B.C.
Dawkins said her client knows what he did was wrong.
"He’s told me point blank he deserves to be punished," she said.
She added Kohlman wanted to apologize for the damage he caused and for hurting community members through his actions.
Kohlman was born and raised in Nelson, B.C., but his life changed at about five or six years old after his Indigenous father killed his mother then died by suicide, leaving the child in the care of his aunt and uncle, Dawkins told the court.
Dawkins said Kohlman started drinking and smoking marijuana at the age of 13 before moving to Vancouver at 18 and getting into harder drugs.
He has a Grade 11 education, has worked a range of jobs since moving to Vancouver and had been working for 20 years as a drywall installer at the time of his arrest with no criminal record, Dawkins told the sentencing hearing.
The court heard the damage total from the fires was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Society of Freemasons was founded more than 300 years ago as a trade group and continues today as a social organization operating around the world.
