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Arsonist targeted Amish schools

LANCASTER - A volunteer firefighter apologized yesterday before being sentenced to prison for setting fires at one-room Amish and Old Order Mennonite schoolhouses.

LANCASTER - A volunteer firefighter apologized yesterday before being sentenced to prison for setting fires at one-room Amish and Old Order Mennonite schoolhouses.

A Lancaster County judge sentenced Dustin Shane Gerth, 19, of Narvon, to 11 1/2 to 23 months in prison and seven years' probation for the fires last year.

A June fire at the Pleasant Valley School near Ephrata did about $20,000 in damage.

Gerth pleaded guilty in February to burglary, arson and other offenses.

His attorney, Beverly Rampaul, described him in court as "unsophisticated" and noted that his two juvenile accomplices received probation. *