Jeannette man jailed since June 2018 for fatal fire sentenced to probation

A case manager will help a Jeannette man navigate life outside of jail after he was sentenced to two years of probation Friday in connection with a fatal 2018 house fire in Jeannette.

Brian Rendon, 38, was set to be released from the Westmoreland County Prison where he has been housed for more than five years. Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio sentenced him Friday to 11 1/2 to 23 months and gave him credit for time served since June 25, 2018.

“He’s obviously served the maximum possible sentence there,” she said, adding that the probation term began Friday.

Rendon pleaded guilty in April to a reduced misdemeanor — involuntary manslaughter — for his role in setting a fire at a South Seventh Street six-unit row house complex that killed Shirley Kocherans, 87. The April 9, 2018, blaze injured her granddaughter and left about a dozen others homeless.

He originally was charged with criminal homicide, which carries a potential life sentence, but Rendon’s attorneys struck a deal for the lesser offense after Bilik-DeFazio threw out pieces of evidence integral to the prosecution’s case. Kocherans’ family and other victims agreed to the lesser charge.

In the fatal fire, Rendon also pleaded guilty to arson and reckless endangerment. He admitted involvement in an arson at his former home on Railroad Street in Jeannette two days earlier.

He was ordered to not return to that home and pay $40,405 in restitution. Rendon told Bilik-DeFazio he had nothing to say before sentencing other than he understood the proceeding.

Diane Frey with the county’s behavioral health department told Bilik-DeFazio that it’s been difficult to find affordable housing for Rendon, but one option may exist in Jeannette. A case manager with Westmoreland Casemanagement and Supports, Inc. will work with him to get necessities after his release, she said.

“We’d like to get him involved in some social activities so there’s no boredom, which is … why he did what he did,” Frey said.

Testimony during a past pretrial hearing indicated Rendon’s IQ is 70. That finding led Bilik-DeFazio in 2022 to rule that he was unable to understand his legal situation when being questioned by investigators in the weeks following the fatal fire.

“He falls in this gap that we’ve experienced,” Bilik-DeFazio said Friday. “His IQ is 70 and if he was 69, he would qualify for all kinds of supports.”

She said she believed Rendon was a low risk to re-offend.

“You‘ll have a couple of people that will be coming around to see you and want to help you,” Bilik-DeFazio told him.