The Nebraska man who led a plot to start fires inside Walmart stores in the Gulf Coast in 2021 this week was sentenced to 18 years in prison, double the recommended prison term under federal guidelines.
“This sentence was based on the totality and severity of the defendant’s actions,” FBI–Mobile Special Agent in Charge Paul Brown said of Jeffery Sikes, a.k.a. “Kenneth Allen” in a press release that followed.
Sikes, 42, is appealing the sentence United States District Judge Terry F. Moorer gave him Tuesday, which included $7,295,533 in restitution, to be paid by Sikes and his co-defendants.
Between Tuesday and Friday, Moorer sentenced six members of the conspiracy in all. Brothers Alexander Olson, 23, and Quinton Olson, 22, got 15 years and three years respectively; Sikes’ wife, Erica Sikes, 41, and Jenna Bottorff, 38, got four years; and Mikaya Scheele, 29, got two years for the parts they played in the crimes.
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There is no parole in federal prison.
Two others, Michael Bottorff and Sean Bottorff, will face sentencing later this summer.
United States Attorney Sean P. Costello said the group had “deliberately endangered innocent shoppers and destroyed millions of dollars of merchandise when they intentionally and maliciously set fires in four stores in two states.”
“Setting fire to a business isn’t an economic or political argument, it’s a serious violent crime that has serious consequences,” he said.
In the indictment, Christopher Bodnar, Assistant U.S. Attorney, said the conspirators initially lived in Kearney, Nebraska, but followed Sikes to Alabama, where he fled after pleading guilty to a wire fraud in Nebraska in 2017.
By 2021, they were calling themselves The Veterans Order and had drafted a manifesto making demands on Walmart related to the company’s commercial practices and sent it to media outlets to draw attention to the arson attacks.
First among their list of demands was a pay increase of $18 per hour for all employees, according to Fox 10, a TV station in Mobile, which posted it.
They set fires at a Walmarts in Mobile, Alabama, on May 27, 2021, in Tillman’s Corner, Alabama, on May 28, and in Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, on June 4.
And they threatened to start more if the company didn’t comply with their demands.
A monthslong investigation led to their arrests in February 2022, and they later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to set malicious fires.