Department of Justice
For Immediate Release
McAlester Resident Sentenced for Arson in Indian Country
MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Dalyn Ray Lane Johnson, age 24, of McAlester, Oklahoma, was sentenced on May 4, 2023, to 39 months in prison for Arson in Indian Country.
The charges arose from an investigation by the Hartshorne Police Department, the Oklahoma State Fire Marshal, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
According to investigators, on April 29, 2021, Johnson started a fight with a Hartshorne resident, and threatened to return and burn down the house. That same afternoon, video surveillance showed Johnson filling a fuel canister with gasoline at a Casey’s gas station. In the early morning hours of May 1st, the Hartshorne Fire Department responded to an emergency call and extinguished a fire at an unoccupied residence. Johnson fled, attempting to evade prosecution, and was later arrested on a federal warrant in Michigan on October 21st.
On March 9, 2022, Johnson pleaded guilty to Arson in Indian Country.
“Johnson’s arrest and conviction for arson was a team effort that resulted in a serious violent crime being solved and the perpetrator held accountable,” said SSA Ashley Stephens, Resident Agent in Charge, ATF Tulsa Field Office. “ATF is committed to working with our state, local and tribal partners to tirelessly combat violent crime in Eastern Oklahoma.”
"Arson can sometimes be a difficult crime to prosecute,” said United States Attorney Christopher J. Wilson. “Our law enforcement partners did an excellent job of gathering evidence and tracking down the defendant hundreds of miles from the crime scene.”
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma prosecuted this case because the defendant is a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe and the crime occurred in Pittsburg County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation and within the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The Honorable Ronald A. White, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing in Muskogee. Johnson was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal at the conclusion of sentencing and will remain in custody pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve his non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.
Assistant United States Attorney Anthony C. Marek represented the United States.