He was a Bay Area bon vivant, a connoisseur of art, food and wine who rented a Sausalito flat with a harbor view, published musings in a newspaper column, and stored fine cabernets and zinfandels for collectors.
But on Monday, Mark C. Anderson wore a faded-orange jail uniform as he took responsibility for a crime that soured the region's collective palate: an arson at a Vallejo warehouse that destroyed more than $200 million worth of reds and whites.
By pleading guilty to arson and 18 other counts in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Anderson avoided a trial that was set to begin today. He won't have to face the prosecution's 56 witnesses, many of them collectors and vintners who saw their passion or livelihood wrecked in the October 2005 inferno.
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Guilty of Arson
. . . . . Pete
