LEWISTON – One of three people accused of setting a fire that demolished four buildings on Lisbon Street in December denied the charges Thursday in Androscoggin County Superior Court.

Timothy Giggey, 27, of 104 Third St., Auburn, pleaded not guilty to charges of arson and burglary stemming from the Dec. 19 blaze.

Giggey was ordered held on $100,000 bail pending a future court hearing.

Giggey and his brother Douglas Hersom, 26, of 46 Knox St., Lewiston, were each charged with arson and burglary days after the buildings burned on the downtown end of Lisbon Street.

Both men have been jailed since the blaze that claimed a cluster of buildings near the intersection of Ash and Lisbon streets, and disrupted the downtown area for weeks.

A 17-year-old Lewiston teen, Troy Littlefield, faces the same charges in connection with the blaze. His case is being handled through the juvenile court system because of his age, according to District Attorney Norm Croteau.

Police said the trio set the fire to create a diversion after breaking into a Lisbon Street building to steal copper. The three feared they had set off a burglar alarm in that building and allegedly set the fires in a building that formerly housed Marco’s Restaurant, as a diversion, according to an affidavit.

Police and fire investigators believe the trio also broke into the Cressey building – sandwiched between two other buildings that also burned – and set several other fires, according to Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. A fourth building was also damaged, and all eventually had to be torn down.

State and local investigators arrested the suspects after questioning the three and interviewing witnesses, some of whom said they saw three people fleeing from the back of one of the buildings shortly after the fire was called in.

In an interview with a WGME news reporter last week, Hersom insisted that he and Giggey entered the building but that it was Littlefield who started the fire. Hersom is also being held on $100,000 bail.