Colorado man sentenced for trying to burn down church

DENVER — A 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge, admitting that he set two small fires at a church in northern Colorado in 2023.

In a federal courtroom in Denver, Darion Ray Sexton admitted to throwing two Molotov cocktails at Abiding Love Lutheran Church in Loveland on the night of Jan. 19, 2023. One of the fire bombs charred the church’s front doors. The other device was set off in the church’s basement. The church was equipped with a sprinkler system which snuffed out the fire in the basement. The basement fire caused “slight damage,” Loveland Police said in January.

Sexton said he wanted to destroy the church because he did not agree with its religious character, according to a release from the Department of Justice.

“Protecting religious freedom and observance is a top priority for the Department of Justice,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said. “We will continue to vigorously prosecute those who attack houses of worship and target religious communities.”

According to the criminal complaint, investigators followed footprints in the snow near the church to a nearby neighborhood and to Sexton’s house. 

A doorbell camera at the church showed a person wearing a mask throwing one of the Molotov cocktails at the front door. The person in the video was wearing similar clothes recovered from Sexton’s home by FBI and ATF agents, the complaint says.

Investigators also found a plastic bottle at Sexton’s home was similar to one found in the church basement.

Two days before the fires, a Loveland liquor store surveillance camera showed a man who looks like Sexton buying Admiral Nelson’s Premium Watermelon rum — which was the same type of glass bottles found at the church, the complaint says.

Sexton was sentenced on Jan. 24, 2024 to 39 months in prison. 

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