Authorities are accusing a Michigan LGBT rights leader of burning down his home after previously investigating the event as a hate crime, The Detroit News reported Tuesday. The home of Nikki Joly, a transgender man and gay rights activist, in Jackson, Mich., burned down in 2017, killing five pets. The fire was initially investigated by the FBI as a hate crime, given that Joly had received multiple threats after a year where he helped open the city’s first gay community center, organized the first gay festival and helped lead a battle for an ordinance that prohibits discrimination against gay people. ADVERTISEMENT Joly had been named the citizen of the year by a local paper for those efforts. However, authorities have now determined that Joly set the fire intentionally. The motive is still in question, given that Joly did not own the house and would not receive an insurance payout for the damage. A police investigative report suggests that Joly was driven by frustration over diminishing attention on gay rights activism in Jackson, according to The Detroit News. St. Johns United Church of Christ workers Barbara Shelton and Bobby James said Joly was disappointed the Jackson Pride Parade and Festival had not been protested. Shelton told Detroit News that she did not agree with the police's characterization of her comments. “Not sure I said that,” she wrote in an email. “I have no idea about anything, never heard Nikki comment in any fashion about anything like that." James declined to comment to Detroit News. Joly's attorney, Daniel Barnett, said his client already had plenty of attention for his gay rights activism and was not looking for more. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “He was citizen of the year. There was plenty of media coverage already before the fire.”<doc-sep>When Nikki Joly's Jackson home burned down in 2017, some believed the fire was a hate crime against the transgender, gay-rights activist who had fought for a local anti-discrimination ordinance. But now, instead of a victim, the 54-year-old is accused of being the perpetrator. The Michigan case is gaining national attention as the American public draws parallels to the situation involving Jussie Smollett, where the supposed victim in a hate crime became the accused. Authorities concluded the attack on Smollett was a hoax. “Real hate crimes are on the rise,” Graham Cassano, associate professor of sociology at Oakland University, said Monday. “But as these crimes increase and become publicized, it’s not surprising to me that people would take the opportunity to use this to their advantage and fabricate hate crimes.” Authorities are accusing Joly, who was named Citizen of the Year by the Jackson Citizen Patriot last year, of setting fire to his own home and killing his pets, two dogs and three cats. He has been charged with first-degree arson. More: Mitch Albom: The real victim in the Jussie Smollett case Downriver dog rescuers in legal fight with 'Pit Bulls and Parolees' star A hearing has been set for March 8 in Jackson County Circuit Court. "We determined it pretty quickly to be an arson," Elmer Hitt, Jackson’s director of police and fire services, said Monday. "We investigated it over what probably was a year’s time before the prosecutor ended up issuing charges.” Unexpected twists Hitt said that, initially, some in the community perceived the blaze to be a hate crime. Investigators considered that too, but ruled out the possibility as evidence pointing to Joly came to light. Hitt declined to offer a motive for the house fire, but acknowledged that some people in Jackson were probably rattled — perhaps in a similar way to the Smollett case — by the police investigation's unexpected outcome and charge. In the higher-profile hate crime case that turned on its head last week, Smollett, a 36-year-old actor on the TV drama "Empire," alleged to Chicago police he had been a victim. Smollett was arrested on charges that he set up the assault. Smollett, who is black and gay, said that masked men yelled racial slurs, attacked him, put a rope around his neck and made references to MAGA, the acronym for President Donald Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again." But, Chicago police said, their investigation found evidence that Smollett staged the crime, possibly to portray himself as a victim and boost his salary as an actor, and lied to police. Citizen of the Year Joly, a transgender man, was touted as Jackon's 2018 citizen of the year by the local newspaper and described as an activist who had endured slights and still re-energized a movement. He tried to "pass an ordinance in Jackson protecting people against discrimination because they are gay, because they are transgender, because they aren't as some say they should be." The newspaper's long profile described the Detroit native as someone who had been on his own since his adoptive parents ousted him at 15, had been sexually assaulted, and subjected to "insulting gender questions" and "refused service in bars or restaurants." Joly, the article said, was "born female," but "prefers a masculine pronoun" and has long "been activist-minded even if it was not always openly." It also mentioned the fire on Aug. 10, 2017, in which his home was burned down. In the profile, Joly said that he was "really in shock for quite a while" after the fire. He teared at the thought of his dogs, who perished in the blaze, and organized a weapons training course at a gun range to fight fear. A few months later, Joly was charged with setting the fire. Fake hate crimes In the Joly case, police suspicion was based on a timeline of events, phone records, physical evidence and witness statements. Joly had the "means and opportunity to start the fire," according to a report published by MLive.com in October. The MLive article said security camera video showed Joly filling a gas can before the fire, gasoline was on his clothing, a witness smelled gas on him, photographs seemed to be missing from the walls, and after the fire, Joly received $50,000 in donations. Joly's attorney, Andrew Abood, challenged the police conclusion. "What they have is a coincidence and a coincidence is not proof beyond reasonable doubt," MLive quoted Abood saying. "They are trying to convict on circumstantial evidence and theory when they have no direct evidence in the case." Still, Cassano said that when presumed victims of hate crimes are actually the perpetrators, "it's terrible for social movements in general" and terrible, specifically, for people "facing real hate crimes." In 2018 alone, the civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, tracked 26 deaths of transgender people in the U.S. as a result of violence. So far this year, the group identified one death. The most recent stats from the FBI showed 7,106 hate crimes in 2017, up 17 percent from the year before. Of those crimes, nearly 60 percent of the victims were targeted because of race and ethnicity and nearly 16 percent because of sexual orientation. "When someone comes along and fabricates a hate crime it calls into question people who have really experienced these things," Cassano said. "It's absolutely awful. It really, to my mind, is incomprehensible." Wilfred Reilly, an associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University in Frankfort who has studied fake hate crimes, wrote that the fact that Smollett’s case is being alleged a hoax "shouldn’t surprise anyone." Reilly didn't mention the Joly case but made the case in an opinion piece for USA TODAY and a book "Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War" that "a great many hate crime stories turn out to be hoaxes." The professor said he found more than 400 confirmed hate hoaxes, and he concluded that "what hate hoaxers actually do is worsen generally good race relations, and distract attention from real problems." Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com. More: Chilling new details intriple murder-suicide More: Deep snow drifts createmess on I-75 Up North<doc-sep>
Michigan prosecutors allege Nikki Joly, a longtime LGBT activist, set fire to her home and killed her pets due to resentment from subsiding controversy over the enactment of nondiscrimination legislation she supported. The Detroit News reported Monday that law enforcement charged Joly, a transgender man from Jackson, Michigan, who burned down her own home, killing five pets inside, in what was initially investigated by the FBI as an alleged hate crime in 2017. The newspaper, citing two individuals who worked alongside Joly at St. Johns United Church of Christ, where the Jackson Pride Center is based, reported that Jolly, 54, had become “frustrated the controversy over gay rights had died down with the passage of the nondiscrimination law.” The Detroit News reported: The church officials, Barbara Shelton and Bobby James, when asked by police about a possible motive for the fire, said Joly was disappointed the Jackson Pride Parade and Festival, held five days before the blaze, hadn’t received more attention or protests. Contacted by a reporter, James declined to comment. But Shelton quibbled with the way police characterized her remarks, saying she had no idea if Joly was frustrated by the lack of controversy. “Not sure I said that,” she wrote in an email. “I have no idea about anything, never heard Nikki comment in any fashion about anything like that.” Police officer Aaron Grove, who interviewed Shelton and James, said the pair described Joly as “‘very deceptive” and possessing “layers of manipulation.” Joly, who was named MLive’s 2018 Citizen of the Year, spearheaded several LGBTQ-friendly initiatives and events, including the town’s first gay festival. “It’s embarrassing,” said Travis Trombley, a gay resident of Jackson and former ally of Jolly. “How do you do it to the community you have put so much effort into helping?” The paper reports that five pets — two German Shepherds and three cats — died in the fire. The body of one dog blocked a door as firefighters tried to enter. The alleged hate hoax comes after Chicago prosecutors charged Empire actor Jussie Smollett for filing a false report with police in connection to staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself last month. Smollett told police two masked individuals hurled bigoted insults and doused him with an unknown chemical substance while walking home from a sandwich shop at 2 a.m. on January 29. The actor also told police his assailants looped a thin rope around his neck and shouted “This is MAGA country!” before fleeing. He allegedly enlisted the help of two brothers — Abimbola “Abel” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo — to stage the attack, paying them $3,500 by check. Smollett returned to the Chicago set of Empire after posting bond for $100,000 at a Cook County courthouse hours prior. However, Smollett’s role on the hit FOX studios program is uncertain as executive producers considering recasting his character.