BWCA fire suspect commits suicide

[Lee Borgersen]

BWCA fire suspect commits suicide, lawyer says

The Washington, D.C., man's campfire was linked to the Ham Lake blaze of 2007.

By LORA PABST, Star Tribune

Last update: December 16, 2008 - 11:49 PM



The Washington, D.C., man accused of causing one of the worst wildfires in Minnesota history committed suicide Tuesday, his attorney said.

The May 2007 fire blackened tens of thousands of acres in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and beyond.

Stephen George Posniak, 64, died in Washington, D.C., from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said his attorney, Mark Larsen.

Posniak, a retired federal employee, had been charged with failing to completely extinguish a paper trash fire he started at a Ham Lake campsite on May 5, 2007, causing the state's worst fire since 1918. It raged for a week, charring more than 118 square miles in Minnesota and Ontario, destroying nearly 150 buildings and costing about $11 million in firefighting efforts.

His death came a day after a judge rejected the defense's efforts to have statements Posniak made early in the investigation thrown out.

"I'm sorry that we've lost a kind and gentle man who loved the BWCA," Larsen said.

In the indictment filed in October in U.S. District Court, Posniak was also accused of lying to investigators about where he had camped and when he noticed that the fire was burning out of control.

Posniak had pleaded not guilty in early November to the charges brought against him. His trial was set for Jan. 5 in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. He faced a potential maximum penalty of six years in prison, and Larsen had previously said that he thought prosecutors might seek restitution of the $11 million in firefighting costs.

"It was our position when he was still alive that the case was overcharged," Larsen said Tuesday.

Larsen said he has spoken with Posniak's family but declined to say what they discussed. A woman who answered the phone at Posniak's Washington home and identified herself as a relative declined to comment.

David Anderson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday that the case probably will be dismissed now that Posniak, the only defendant, is dead. He wrote that the U.S. attorney's office will file a motion for dismissal, which will require a court ruling. Anderson was not sure how long that process will take.

Ruling came as a blow

On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Erickson ruled that statements Posniak made to investigators in the days after the fire would be permitted in court. Larsen had argued that those statements should be thrown out because Posniak wasn't read his rights and was not told he was a suspect when he was questioned.

"I can't help but note the fact that 24 hours later, he died," Larsen said. "I do feel that this case played a role in what took place [Tuesday]. The case was important to Steve."

Larsen said that he had planned to argue that the fire was not a willful or intentional act.

"For a man who had been up to the Boundary Waters on an annual basis for two decades, the notion that anything had taken place of a willful character was in conflict with his past conduct," Larsen said Tuesday.

Information posted on the Internet showed that Posniak was a retired information technology expert for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and that he had a B.S. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. from the University of Minnesota.

"It's a real tragedy," Larsen said. "Steve dies a presumptively innocent man."

Lora Pabst •