LORAIN, Ohio — A Lorain woman will spend years in prison for intentionally starting a fire that destroyed two Brownell Avenue homes.
On Monday, a judge sentenced Amber Bodnar-Kurta to five to seven years for three arson charges and one theft charge. Bodnar-Kurta previously pleaded guilty to the charges connected to an October 2024 arson in a Lorain neighborhood.
Almost a year and a half later, one of the homes is gone, and the other still bears the scars from the arson.
"The smell is like a reminder of how I had to run out of that house with my kids,” said Jessica Gonzalez.
Gonzalez previously spoke to News 5 after she narrowly escaped the fire with her four children, ages 5-15.
"The feelings, emotions, my children, him, it’s all of us that are still dealing with it,” she said Monday, alongside her brother Ira Huntington.
Huntington, a local minister, lived in the basement of Bodnar-Kurta’s house and was the first to notice the flames, while returning from distributing flyers for his church.
"I took off running,” he recalled. “I got to the house and fire [was] coming out of the window. I went next door to Jessica’s and was banging on the house, banging on the house.”
Gonzalez and her children escaped without injuries, but she said the event has left a lasting impact on the family. Her daughter, now 13, wrote a victim impact statement for Monday’s sentencing.
"It has changed my life in ways I’m still trying to understand,” the handwritten letter said.
Gonzalez said the teen now experiences anxiety. Her younger children also had a difficult time adjusting after they lost everything in the fire.
“We were in the house and Amber knew we were in the house,” she told the judge on Monday.
She said she was not satisfied with the length of the prison sentence and was skeptical that the family would receive any of the $29,000 Bodnar-Kurta was ordered to pay in restitution.
"It wasn’t justice, to me it’s not, because me and my children are still living it,” she said.
Huntington is owed $2,000 in restitution. He said he’s grateful the defendant is now required to register as an arson offender.
"Everywhere you move, you have to go tell them, say, ‘I burn houses,’” he said.
Both Huntington and Gonzalez now have new homes and said the sentencing did provide some measure of closure.
Bodnar-Kurta’s house was demolished shortly after the fire in 2024, but Gonzalez’s former home is still standing with extensive fire damage. She said she’s been working with a city council person to get the house torn down.
She said it’s a painful reminder of the trauma her family endured.
"It’s memories you built that she destroyed. Those are memories you can never get back,” she said.
Following her prison sentence, Bodnar-Kurta will have two to five years of post-release control.
Catherine Ross is the Lorain County reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @CatherineRossTV, on Facebook CatherineRossTV or email her at Catherine.Ross@wews.com.
