In Plea Court yesterday before Indiana County President Judge Thomas Bianco, former firefighter Nicholas Leone of Creekside admitted to his role in three arson fires set at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. However, his criminal docket sheet does not detail what charges he pleaded guilty to, instead simply listing a sentencing date of March 7th of next year.
The 25-year-old Leone was charged with more than two dozen criminal offenses for fires December 21st 2018 at a barn along Route 954 in Washington Township, eight days later at an abandoned garage and carport with a car inside it along Bailey Road in Washington Township, and at an Amish furniture store in West Mahoning Township on January 25th of 2019.
Leone admitted to participating in the arsons at the time of his arrest with fellow firefighter Dylan Dalessio of Plumville. Dalessio earlier this month was sentenced to serve concurrent prison terms totaling as many as fifteen years in connection with those and other arson fires and related crimes.
There were at least eleven arson fires set in northern Indiana County between 2018 and the arrests of Dalessio and Leone in September of 2019. Subsequent investigations found more arson fires going back as far as 2016, for which Dalessio pleaded guilty.
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