AUBURN – A Bates College student charged with setting fire to school property last spring is scheduled to stand trial next month.

Edmund Antell, 19, of Sherborn, Mass., was indicted on a count of arson, as was his friend, Kyle Pickard, 19, also from Sherborn, who apparently had been visiting Antell.

Antell, a member of the Bates Class of 2011, was completing his freshman year at the school at the time of the incident.

He was suspended for the first half of this school year, a college spokesman said.

A fire investigator said the two teens allegedly found a canister of gasoline near Andrews Pond where landscaping work was under way. He said they poured it on the pavement and lit it. The canister also was burned, spreading the fire to a nearby pile of signs.

Firefighters were called to the campus about 2 p.m. and quickly put out the fire. It scorched a small area of mulch. No injuries were reported.

Antell and Pickard were arrested shortly after the fire was extinguished. They are free on $1,000 cash bail.

Both youths filed motions seeking to have separate trials in Androscoggin County Superior Court after the state joined their cases.

Each claimed the other’s statements to authorities following the incident would unfairly prejudice a jury against them because they wouldn’t have a chance to challenge each other’s statements.

Antell also filed a motion seeking to suppress statements he made to college security officers from being used at trial. Although they are not sworn law enforcement agents of the state, school security officers acted in that capacity that day, his motion read.

Antell was in custody and was being questioned by security officers before he was read his rights, local attorney William Cote wrote in the motion. Antell hadn’t been given his Miranda warning and hadn’t waived his rights, Cote wrote.

In court records, conditions of Antell’s release would allow him to return to the Bates campus with permission from the school. Pickard was barred from college property.

A school spokesman said last spring that Antell was asked to leave the campus following his May arrest. If he expressed interest in returning this fall, he would be subject to student judiciary review, said Media Relations Director Bryan McNulty.

McNulty said Friday that Antell’s review resulted in his disciplinary suspension for the fall semester. He could return in January, if he chose to.