Staff photo / Ed Runyan Phillip Lawrence, 46, left, of West Ravenwood Avenue in Youngstown, pleads guilty Thursday to felony arson in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for setting a fire Jan. 11 in a temporary Campbell Police Department holding cell. He was sentenced to probation. Lawrence’s attorney is David Gerchak.

YOUNGSTOWN — Phillip Lawrence, 46, of West Ravenwood Avenue, pleaded guilty Thursday to a fourth-degree felony arson for setting a fire Jan 11 in a temporary Campbell Police Department holding cell.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney sentenced Lawrence to two years of probation, 80 hours of community service and required him to enter into the state’s arson registry. The sentence was jointly recommended by prosecutors and the defense.

A Campbell police report states that at 2:29 a.m. Jan. 11, a dispatcher saw a prisoner in the cell who had ignited an object, causing it to be on fire. The dispatcher told a police officer in the same room with the dispatcher about the fire and alerted the Campbell Fire Department.

The officer and dispatcher entered the cell and saw Lawrence in the doorway. The cell door was burning at the front and rear bottom corners, and a t-shirt on the floor was burning, the report states.

The officer used a fire extinguisher to extinguish the fire and prevent further damage. Lawrence was removed from the room and placed in handcuffs and leg shackles. Two officers who were working road patrol arrived, as well as a fire department captain.

The cell and hallway were ventilated because of an accumulation of smoke, and photographs of the damage and other evidence were taken. A burned lighter and an unburned lighter, as well as a burned t-shirt, were taken as evidence.

No estimate of the amount of damage was given in the report. Lawrence was taken to the Mahoning County jail.

The officer who extinguished the flames was writing a report when he learned of the fire, the report states.

The officer stated that when he went to the holding cell, he saw a T-shirt on fire and a lighter next to it. Lawrence stated: “That’s what y’all get for not letting me call my lawyer,” the report states.

“A short time later, I went to check on Lawrence in the holding cell, and he had a second lighter in his hands and stated ‘I was going to set my other t-shirt on fire if you didn’t catch me,'” the report states.

The second lighter was removed from Lawrence, and he was “checked again to make sure he didn’t have any items on him,” the report adds.

The report does not indicate the reason Lawrence was in the holding cell, but an OVI charge was filed against him Jan. 11, also by Campbell police, according to Campbell Municipal Court records. The OVI charge was bound over to common pleas court, along with the felony arson charge. But Lawrence has not been indicted on the OVI charge, according to common pleas court records.