Stefan Day Rowold, 37, of Wiggins, Mississippi, was sentenced today to 360 months in prison for vandalizing and setting fire to a house of worship. A jury in the Southern District of Mississippi found Rowold guilty of six counts of federal arson and civil rights charges after a trial in September 2025.
“Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of the defendant’s reprehensible conduct,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Anyone who attacks a house of worship in America will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The evidence presented at trial last year showed that on July 5, 2024, and July 7, 2024, Rowold vandalized and set fire to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Wiggins, Mississippi. Evidence at trial also proved that Rowold targeted the church because of his animosity toward what he believed to be their religious views. Rowold confessed to police that he broke into the church building, vandalized the interior walls of the building with hateful messages, and ultimately set a fire in the middle of a multipurpose room. Rowold used the church’s hymnals, paintings, and other religious objects as kindling for his original arson offense. Rowold also confessed that after he learned that his first fire had failed to burn down the building, he broke into the church again two days later to finish the job, after police had attempted to secure the scene. Rowold then set a second fire against a wall inside the church, trying again to burn the building down.
Due to the damage from the fires, members of the church were unable to hold services in their church building for months. At sentencing, the district court awarded the church $176,564 in restitution.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Baxter Kruger for the Southern District of Mississippi, and Special Agent in Charge Robert A. Eikhoff of the FBI Jackson Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI Jackson Field Office investigated the case, with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal, and the Wiggins Police Department.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Buckner for the Southern District of Mississippi and Trial Attorney Chloe Neely of the Civil Rights Division prosecuted the case.