Arson charges filed in Iowa City apartment fire

An Iowa City woman faces a felony charge of first-degree arson after authorities say she lit her ex-boyfriend’s couch on fire at 1:20 a.m. Tuesday inside a 48-unit apartment building.

Victoria R. Lea, 20, is accused in connection with an incident that happened at 229 S. Dubuque St. The downtown building has restaurants on the ground level and 48 apartments on the remaining four floors.

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Police say Lea called 911 and reported smoke inside an apartment she was watching, but refused to provide more information to dispatchers before hanging up. The call came within a minute of the building’s fire alarms going off, police records show.

Firefighters found smoke coming from a unit and had to force entry into it because the door had been deadbolted. A chair and table had been moved to barricade the door, investigators said. Firefighters found a couch had been lit on fire and found lighter fluid and a lighter next to it. Firefighters extinguished the fire and found Lea inside the apartment, a criminal complaint states.

Investigators determined the tenant who lived at the unit was out of state when the fire broke out. The tenant told investigators Lea had a key to the apartment and had made suicidal statements and was upset he would not immediately return to Iowa City when she called him several hours before the fire, the criminal complaint states.

Lea remained in custody Thursday. First-degree arson is a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison upon conviction.