A judge sentenced 48-year-old Peter Taraba to 16 months in state prison this week for setting fire to Berkeley's city-run animal shelter in June, an attack followed by two more acts of sabotage before he was finally locked up. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Clifford Blakeley handed down the sentence Thursday, imposing 16 months despite prosecutors asking for 24 months.
A Fire Lit Hours After His Dog Was Taken
According to Berkeleyside, Taraba set the fire at the Berkeley Animal Care Services shelter in West Berkeley on June 6, burning a pile of pet supplies beneath a lobby staircase. The blaze came the night after Berkeley police arrested him on Shattuck Avenue on suspicion of misdemeanor vandalism for puncturing a bicycle tire, an arrest that led officers to seize his dog and place the animal in the shelter for safe housing, per The Berkeley Scanner. Surveillance footage captured Taraba in the area of the shelter, and police said he used an improvised ignition device, according to the Berkeley news outlet's report. Sprinklers extinguished the flames, but smoke damage spread through parts of the building and the sprinkler water itself caused additional harm.
Taraba did not stop there. Four days later, on June 10, he returned to the shelter, climbed an exterior fence and turned on an outdoor water spigot, flooding the building's first floor and interior dog room, even though animals had already been evacuated following the fire, the outlet reported. After his arrest the next day, he flooded the toilet in his cell at the Berkeley city jail, prompting authorities to move him to Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he remained held on more than $600,000 bail.
Judge Cites Minimal Record Despite Serious Conduct
Taraba was found guilty of felony arson in September after representing himself at trial, offering no opening statement or closing arguments, calling no witnesses, and declining to cross-examine any of the prosecution's witnesses, Berkeleyside reported. The jury reached its verdict in under three hours. At sentencing, Taraba said he had tried several times to report the fire he had set, the outlet noted.
Judge Blakeley described the arson as extremely serious and extremely dangerous conduct, but he also noted that Taraba had been charged with a nonviolent crime and had minimal previous criminal history, according to Berkeleyside's account of the hearing. Prosecutors had asked for a two-year prison sentence, while Taraba asked for probation instead of prison. Under California Penal Code Section 451(d), arson of property is punishable by up to three years, according to Cron Israels and Stark. Berkeleyside reported that Taraba is likely eligible for release after serving roughly half of his sentence.
Shelter Damage and Disputed Euthanasia Claims
At the time of his June 11 arrest, Berkeley police had initially booked Taraba on suspicion of arson and more than 40 individual counts of animal cruelty, one for each animal present in the shelter during the fire, The Berkeley Scanner reported. Prosecutors ultimately tried him only on felony arson and property charges rather than the individual cruelty counts. The fire and its aftermath forced the shelter to shut down for a little less than two months, displacing 42 animals to other facilities, per Berkeleyside.
Accounts of what happened to those animals diverge. Kevin W. Asvitt said some animals were euthanized after the fire, while Michael St. Pierre said no animals were euthanized as a direct result of the blaze and that euthanasia decisions were instead based on each animal's individual circumstances, according to Berkeleyside's reporting.
A Slow Reopening and a Troubled Prior Record
The shelter has since resumed nearly full operations as of July, though part of its second floor remains closed to the public and is now used as overflow space for dogs, per the same Berkeleyside account. The Berkeley Scanner reported separately that the shelter's soft reopening in late July followed a seven-week closure, with unusable second-floor space forcing staff to temporarily suspend cat adoptions and restrict public entry while repairs awaited structural and permit approvals. Berkeley Animal Services continues to provide field services depending on staffing, and still accepts strays and schedules owner-surrendered animals, Berkeleyside noted.
The Scanner reported that Taraba had a misdemeanor battery case from March involving an allegation that he slapped two staff members at a downtown homeless shelter. A former housemate told the outlet that Taraba lived in shared housing north of UC Berkeley in 2024, and that online professional listings linked him to prior academic research in physics, mathematics and computer science before he became unhoused in Berkeley. The Dona Spring Animal Shelter at 1 Bolivar Drive, the facility Taraba targeted, opened in November 2012 at a projected cost of nearly $12.4 million; funding included a voter-approved $7.2 million bond and a later $5.5 million City Council allocation, according to Berkeleyside's earlier coverage of the shelter's opening. Taraba has been held at Santa Rita Jail since September, awaiting the sentence that will determine how much longer he stays behind bars.
