A south Mississippi man who vandalized and set fire to a Mormon church will serve 30 years in federal prison. 

Stefan Day Rowold was sentenced Tuesday on civil rights and arson charges for the July 2024 fires set at the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Wiggins.

“This was a deliberate, hate-fueled attack on a place of worship meant to intimidate an entire community,” J.E. Baxter Kruger, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said in a statement. “Attacks like this will be met with the full force of federal law. Today’s sentence demonstrates our commitment to protecting the right to worship in safety and without fear.”

Church members were unable to hold service for months because of the fire damage. At Rowold’s sentencing, the court awarded the church about $176,000 in restitution. 

Prosecutors argued during a September 2025 trial that the 37-year-old targeted the church because of “animosity toward what he believed to be their religious views,” according to a news release from Kruger’s office. 

Those beliefs were on display in the messages Rowold wrote on the church’s walls, including “False Prophets” and “you will never reach heaven,” according to the indictment. Other messages he wrote alleged sex trafficking and child sexual abuse by the church. 

The Wiggins resident confessed to police how he broke a glass door with a cinderblock to get inside the church. After writing on the walls, Rowold gathered hymnals, paintings and other religious objects from across the church and used them as kindling to set a fire in a multipurpose room, according to court records. He tried to spread the fire by adding a desk and piano, but the fire eventually went out on its own. 

Days later, a church member arrived for service and saw the damage. Officers from the Wiggins Police Department saw Rowold in the area of the church when they arrived at the scene and put up tape. Rowold realized he had not burned the entire building, according to court records. 

He returned later that day and tried to set another fire, staying in the area as first responders arrived. Rowold went back to the church building to observe, which is when law enforcement saw him again and identified him as a person of interest, according to court documents. 

The FBI Jackson Field Office investigated the case with help from federal, state and local law enforcement, including the Wiggins Police Department and the state fire marshal. 

Rowold’s sentencing comes weeks after a fire was set at Jackson’s Beth Israel Congregation, the largest synagogue in the state. 

Days later, Stephen Spencer Pittman, 19, confessed to his father how he used an ax to break into the synagogue, poured gasoline and lit it with a torch lighter. He was indicted on state and federal charges. Pittman has pleaded not guilty to the federal arson charge and remains jailed awaiting trial.

Correction 2/5/26: This story has been updated to correct Rowold’s sentence.