PALMER — A Wasilla man who burned down his father’s house last year was ruled incompetent for sentencing Wednesday.

Robert A. Montecelli, 29, was arrested in February, 2008. The blaze destroyed the home but left Montecelli’s family unharmed. When Alaska State Troopers found Montecelli, he readily admitted to starting the fire but said God was working through him to punish his father.

In previous hearings, it was said that Montecelli suffered brain injuries that have affected his reasoning. Wednesday, Montecelli backed up the injury portion, but attributed his trouble reasoning to demons. Superior Court Judge Eric Smith said that although Montecelli was now asking to withdraw his guilty plea, he couldn’t accept the withdrawal at the same time he ruled him incompetent to stand trial.

Montecelli’s attorney, John Richard, offered a different solution, pointing out that Montecelli was deemed competent when he entered the plea.

“The court could just go ahead and sentence him and he’d be released,” Richard pointed out because of the time Montecelli has already served.

“The state’s position would be that you have to be competent to be sentenced,” said Assistant District Attorney Alison Collins.

“I would agree,” Smith said, before telling Richard, “it’s a neat solution,” but he couldn’t sentence Montecelli without a competency hearing.

Smith told Montecelli multiple times that the hearing wasn’t the proper venue for a statement he’d prepared. Smith eventually relented and the last and largest part of the hearing consisted of Montecelli speaking, saying aloud all of his statement’s punctuation marks and quoting numerous Bible verses.

“I love my parents comma brothers and sisters period,” he said.

He said Richard talked him into making his guilty plea and that at the time he was under the influence of mind-altering medications. He also asked the state to pay him more than $22 million in gold, $120,000 in silver and $77,000 in cash for wrongly imprisoning him. He said he plans to cleanse and purify Alaska and save it from God’s retribution.

“I’m a saint who did the right thing by burning my wicked dad’s house,” he said, adding that God was acting through him to punish his father for valuing money too highly and not praying with his children.

“The rich oppress me comma and drag me into court,” he said. “I need to get healed by Christ’s miracle healing power.” 

The way a competency ruling like this works, Smith said at the hearing, is that Montecelli will be sent to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, which will have 90 days to do its work.

“I’m going to call it sentencing, but I guess we’ll find out the status,” Smith said. “I guess it’s not a sentencing hearing, it’s a competency hearing.”