ST. ANDREWS, New Brunswick (AP) – A lawyer attacked the credibility of a man whose home was razed during a riot on Grand Manan island, suggesting in court Tuesday that the contents of his kitchen indicate he may have been cooking up drugs.

David Lutz, who is defending men accused of arson in the case, asked about items seized during an earlier search of the Ronald Ross home, including digital scales and baking soda – which can be used in the production of crack cocaine.

“You’re not a baker, are you?” Lutz asked Ross. “You don’t make cookies and muffins?”

But Ross denied there was anything suspicious about the baking soda.

“I used it to deodorize my refrigerator,” he said.

Ross, 42, claimed in court that small-town gossip and fear mongering led to a crowd burning a house to the ground during the riot.

He was testifying during the trial of five Grand Manan men accused of arson and weapons charges after Ross was beaten and his home destroyed during a hot July night of terror and mob violence on the island near Maine in the Bay of Fundy.

The slightly-built Ross, anger still ringing in his voice, strongly denied he was a drug dealer running a crack cocaine house, as his attackers have suggested.

“I never sold crack to anybody,” Ross said during his testimony.

“Islanders stick together. If one person doesn’t like you, no one likes you. They gossip and stories get twisted around. They tell lies to make things better for their own people.”

Ross said he lived on Grand Manan for 10 years, but was always considered an outsider. He admitted to occasionally using crack cocaine himself, but insisted he did not produce or sell the drug to others.

He now lives in Digby, Nova Scotia, and describes himself as a lobster fisherman.

Ross gave his version of events on the night of July 21 and the early morning hours of July 22 when about 30 residents of Grand Manan decided to hand some vigilante justice to him – claiming he threatened his neighbors and sold drugs to young people.

Ross said the mob congregated at a neighbor’s house and spilled out onto the rural road in front of his modest, two-story wooden home.

Ross said trouble began when someone started firing flares at his house, which started small fires.

He said one of the flares hit him in the leg and a photo taken after the riot shows a large bruise.

Ross said there were verbal confrontations.

“One of them said to me, “…We’re going to run you off the island’,” Ross said. “I told him I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Ross admitted firing his rifle 15 times during the melee, but said he aimed it into the air, not at the rioters as some have suggested.

Bullet holes were discovered in the garage of Ross’s neighbor, Carter Foster – one of the five men charged – as well as in a car parked in the driveway of the Ross house.

As the night wore on, Ross was beaten with a baseball bat by rioters while a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer stood helplessly by. Ross’ house was completely consumed by flames.

“Maybe he was scared for his own safety,” Ross said of the Mounted Police officer who was unable to stop his beating.

“But I thought he might try to do something other than waiting for the beating to get so bad I had blood pouring down my face.”

The three Mounted Police officers at the scene have said people on both sides of the fight were belligerent, drinking, angry and violent.

Constable Diane Veronneau told the court in earlier testimony that at one point the three Mounties were dealing with multiple fights, a burning house and a crowd hampering the work of firefighters while yelling, “Let it burn!”

“You don’t know who you’re trying to help,” Veronneau said, later adding, “We’ve got no control at that point.”

Ross denied accusations that have been levelled at him, including that he threatened to start giving away cocaine free to kids if the rioters didn’t back off.

He told the court many people on Grand Manan use illegal drugs of one sort of another, from cocaine to marijuana.

Prosecutors discussed Ross criminal record at the trial, noting that he has been tried and convicted for various assaults and thefts, but never for drug trafficking.

The five accused are Carter Foster, 25, Matthew Lambert, 27, Michael Small, 27, Gregory Guthrie, 27, and Lloyd Bainbridge, 31, all of Grand Manan. Foster, Lambert and Guthrie face weapons charges while Bainbridge and Small are charged with arson.

The trial is expected to last several more days.