By Gary Lloyd
BIBB COUNTY — Two men convicted of burning nine rural churches in February 2006 will be released from state prison early.
According to a Wednesday order from Bibb County Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins, Matthew Cloyd, 29, and Benjamin Moseley, 28, will serve probation after their state prison sentences for arson and burglary were reduced to time served.
Benjamin Moseley at the time of his arrest in March 2006
photo courtesy of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office
Cloyd, Moseley and Russell Lee DeBusk Jr. were all sentenced to federal and state prisons for arson after a string of rural church burnings in February 2006. Five churches were burned on Feb. 3, 2006 in Bibb County. Four days later, four more churches were burned in Sumter, Greene and Pickens counties in an effort to mislead investigators.
Moseley, a Clay-Chalkville High School graduate, along with Birmingham-Southern College classmates Russell DeBusk and Cloyd, were arrested in March 2006 for the string of church burnings. No one was injured in the burnings.
DeBusk received a shorter federal prison sentence in the burnings, as he participated in five of them in Bibb County on Feb. 3, 2006. Moseley and Cloyd burned four more churches in Sumter, Greene and Pickens counties on Feb. 7, 2006, in an attempt to throw off investigators. The case was solved by federal agents who traced the tire tracks left by an SUV driven by Cloyd, which led to their arrests in March 2006.
DeBusk was released from federal prison on April 12, 2012, and Cloyd was released from federal prison on March 22, 2013.
According to the judge’s order, Moseley and Cloyd will serve probation for the remainder of their two-year state sentences. Both will face five years of probation and 300 hours of community service, and will pay $100 per month toward restitution.
Read more about Moseley here.
UPDATE: Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kristi Gares said Cloyd and Moseley are still in custody and “will remain so until we get orders from the judges on their imposed sentences.”
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.
