It was a clever swindling attempt. But not quite clever enough. And on that day in September 2020, the evidence of a devastating fire certainly looked authentic enough as Denis Molla stood near the charred remains of his camper and trucks at his Minnesota home. In an interview with KARE11 at the time, he said he believed the motive for the arson was that someone didn’t like his new “Trump 2020” flag.

“It doesn’t matter what party we are, Republican, Democratic — I think this is just over and beyond terrible he said.

To make the story even more dramatic, Molla and his wife described rescuing their kids from their Brooklyn Center home and saving a litter of puppies from the burning garage.

“I couldn’t see anything,” Molla said. “I had to just feel for where the puppies were.”

In a separate interview in 2021, Molla described seeing three “figures” in his yard on the night of the fire and said one of them dropped a matchbox while he was chasing them. On his return home, Molla said he found his camper on fire and flames had spread to two extended cab pickup trucks next to the camper. He said the fire then spread to his detached garage, where he said he rescued the four sleeping puppies.

He certainly talked a good story, but that’s all it really was. A story. A hoax. And his insurance claims and GoFundMe money he collected were, of course, illegal.

Thanks to investigators, we now know that Molla started the fire after spray painting “Biden 2020,” “BLM,” and a symbol thought to be connected to Antifa, according to the Minnesota Department of Justice.

Standing inside a federal courtroom on Tuesday, he confessed that he started the fire and painted the graffiti so he could make a whopping $300,000 insurance claim and score $17,000 in GoFundMe donations. Sobbing through most of the hearing he pleaded guilty to Wire fraud.

Molla’s attorney said his client has paid back all of the insurance money he collected and has also saved enough money to pay back the GoFundMe donations as soon as the court facilitates it.

The plea deal didn’t establish a prison term, so when he is sentenced at a future date, there’s a good chance he’ll be sentenced to three or four years in prison. The judge has the discretion to give him a lesser sentence.

So we have a likely Trump supporter, who like his idol, Donald Trump, played the victim. Unlike Trump, he didn’t get away with it.

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