By Shereen Siewert
Sentencing has been set for a 30-year-old man convicted of intentionally setting a fire that destroyed a west-side home earlier this year in Wausau.
James Justin Mack Farrar will be sentenced Feb. 28 by Circuit Judge LaMont Jacobson. Farrar was found guilty of arson during a two-day trial that ended Nov. 17.
Police say Farrar, who remains in custody, called 911 after setting two fires inside the home, in the 300 block of North 10th Avenue. The fire was set on March 1.
Farrar has a long history of criminal charges in several counties including in Marathon County, where he was convicted in 2019 of second degree recklessly endangering safety, violating a harassment restraining order and bail jumping. Several additional charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement involving five separate cases. The recklessly endangering safety charge stemmed from a 2017 incident in which Farrar pointed a loaded pistol at a neighbor and threatened to shoot the woman and her son. He was ordered to spend three years on probation.
The arson charge carries a repeater enhancer, which allows for a harsher sentence and is added to a charge if a defendant was convicted of a felony during the five-year period immediately preceding the commission of the crime for which the person is being sentenced.
Judge Jacobson ordered a presentencing investigation be completed before Farrar is sentenced in February.
