Nearly six months after setting fire to the Fort Pierce Islam Center and mosque, 32-year-old Joseph Schreiber took responsibility for the crime Monday.
He plead no contest to the September arson. The plea was part of a negotiate plea deal. The judge sentenced him to 30 years behind bars.
For the time, in newly released audio recordings during Schreiber’s interrogation with investigators, we hear Schreiber himself confess to why he set the fire.
“I’m not proud,” you can hear Schreiber say to investigators.
One of the investigators then asks, “Are you sorry for what you did?”
Schreiber then responds, “Yeah.”
On the recording, released by the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, you can hear Schreiber tell investigators “It was out of the heartbreak for the people who lost loved ones.”
In court Monday, during Schreiber’s sentencing, Schreiber spoke out saying his actions were “motivated by fear and anxiety that St Lucie, Florida would become another Manhattan Word Trade Center attack or a Boston bombing…"
Schreiber ultimately apologized for his actions.
“One of the reasons I was here is I believe he was misled, misled by misinformation by false fear mongering,” said Malik Mohammed, a member of the Islamic Center who was at the hearing Monday.
Schreiber’s rabbi was also at the hearing and said he does not believe Schreiber to be a hateful person.