His girlfriend was kicking him out. Police say he tried to burn the Pasco complex

A Pasco man about to be kicked out by his girlfriend is accused of stuffing a lunch box into their oven and setting it to broil.

Michael D. Cuevas then turned off electricity to the apartment and left before his girlfriend returned with a Pasco police officer, said court document.

When his girlfriend turned the power back on by flipping the circuit breakers, the oven’s broiler heated up and started to burn the lunch box.

Police say if they hadn’t turned off the oven in time, the fire at the Stonegate Apartments could have spread to other units, threatening many others and causing serious damage.

Cuevas, 30, was charged this week in Franklin County Superior Court with attempted first-degree arson, a felony.

Court documents show that Officer Tony Grosz responded to the Road 68 apartment complex shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday.

Grosz met up outside with Cuevas’ girlfriend, who said she lives in one of the units with her young children and Cuevas. She had called police for help in removing Cuevas from the apartment, documents said.

The woman used her house key to unlock the front door. But, when she walked inside, she noticed there was no power.

She opened the breaker box in a back bedroom and turned the electricity back on.

Grosz said they were walking around the house when the woman noticed writing on top of the stove. She was reading it when Grosz saw smoke coming from the stove, court documents said.

The woman discovered it was the oven’s broiler on the hottest setting and the lunch box was inside, squished between the top element and an oven rack.

Grosz pulled out the scorched box and inside was a cooking magazine and a damaged key.

“It appeared that Michael had put the lunch box in the (oven), so it would begin to burn and start a fire when (his girlfriend) turned on the power,” the officer wrote in court documents.

No one else had access the couple’s apartment, and Cuevas was seen leaving before Grosz arrived, he wrote.

Cuevas was arrested when he returned home. He refused to talk with Grosz and immediately asked for a lawyer, according to documents.

He is being held in the Franklin County jail on $5,000 bail.