Man gets nine years for burning Portland house

PORTLAND, Ind. – A sex offender from Michigan this week was sentenced to nine years in prison for setting fire to a house in Portland.

Cody John Conkright, 26, of Flint, was arrested Feb. 20, the day Portland police said he emerged from “a bus from Michigan” and used a cigarette lighter to set a house in the 600 block of North Ship Street ablaze.

The Michigan man that day told authorities that “all abandoned houses are bad.” Damage to the house he targeted – which had no water service or electricity at the time – was estimated at $42,800.

Conkright – sentenced this week by Jay Circuit Court Judge Brian Hutchison – had pleaded guilty to arson, a Level 4 felony carrying up to 12 years in prison, on May 17.

He was convicted of criminal sexual conduct and assault with a dangerous weapon in Michigan’s Newaygo County in 2013. He has also been convicted of home invasion in that county, about 45 miles north of Grand Rapids.

On March 1, Conkright pleaded guilty to a battery charge filed against him in Jay Superior Court in April 2014.

In other court news:

Drug sentence: A Portland woman convicted of drug-related charges was sentenced this week to three years in prison.

Angela M. Gray, 46, had pleaded guilty to possession of a narcotic drug and maintaining a common nuisance.

Under the terms of a plea agreement in the Jay Circuit Court case, three other charges – possession of meth, unlawful possession of a syringe and a second count of possession of a narcotic drug – were dismissed.

The Portland woman had two prior drug-related convictions.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.