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Sentencing for convicted City Heights arsonist

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Posted at 10:15 AM, May 20, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-20 13:15:40-04

SAN DIEGO - Sentencing is scheduled Friday for a man who set a series of early morning fires within walking distance of his City Heights home last year.

Rolando Resendiz, 25, was convicted in March of six counts of arson. He was arrested on April 4, 2015, when he was found walking from an area on Ogden Street where a bag of clothes was set on fire on someone's porch.

Arson investigators also linked Resendiz to several more fires set on March 31, 2015, including two at an apartment building and three in nearby dumpsters.

Deputy District Attorney Ted Fiorito said surveillance video in an alley behind Resendiz's home showed a man wearing shoes with a distinctive pattern walking in the area on the morning of one of the fires. Similar shoes were found during a search of the defendant's residence, according to authorities.

Fiorito said Resendiz was a "serial arsonist" who would go out in the early morning hours "looking for things to set on fire."

Resendiz faces up to 14 years and four months in prison.