AUBURN — A judge on Thursday found a local man was not criminally responsible, by reason of insanity, for setting fires in and outside his apartment in January.

Mark Ambrose, 41, of 52 Hampshire St. appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court, where Active-Retired Justice Robert Clifford determined Ambrose did not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time he set the fires.

Deputy District Attorney James Andrews said he reached a plea agreement with defense attorney Justin Leary based on February reports from forensic psychologist Andrew Wisch that Ambrose suffered from bipolar disorder, delusions, hallucinations, schizoaffective disorder and personality disorder, as well as displaying antisocial traits. He is also alcohol and cannabis dependent, Wisch said in the report.

Andrews said that diagnosis would have been Wisch’s testimony had the case gone to trial. The diagnosis led to negotiations that resulted in Thursday’s insanity plea. Andrews said Wisch concluded that Ambrose had been detached from reality at the time of the incident.

Two other charges, probation violation and burning without a permit, were dismissed Thursday.

As a result of Ambrose’s mental disease or defect, he wasn’t criminally responsible for his actions on the night of Jan. 6 when he set two fires at his home, Clifford said.

Although Wisch concluded that Ambrose was competent to stand trial, Clifford accepted the plea agreement that would release Ambrose into the custody of the commissioner at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ambrose will be taken to Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta and be held until authorities there determine that he poses no threat to himself or others in the community.

The arson charge was punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Andrews said Thursday that Ambrose lit a fire in the middle of his kitchen in a plastic wastebasket that melted it as well as the linoleum flooring. Afterward, he tried to start a grass fire with Christmas wrapping paper outside his home shortly after midnight, Andrews said.

Police talked to a neighbor of Ambrose who awoke to a smell of smoke in her apartment. She looked outside and saw Ambrose on the sidewalk about 15 feet from their apartment building. He told her he was “out of accelerants” and wanted to know if she had items she wanted him to burn. He told her he was trying to “get rid of the evil spirits” and had been stirring the ashes of the fire with a large sword.

That’s when she called police.

Police said Ambrose was tending a fire on the sidewalk when they arrived. He told them he was burning newspaper obituary articles about friends and family because he didn’t want them anymore. He told police about the fire he had set in his kitchen.

There was no damage to the apartment house and evacuation was not required, police said, but Ambrose’s actions were deemed reckless and threatened lives and property. Ambrose had been on probation at the time of his arrest.

He has a criminal history in Androscoggin and Oxford counties, according to court records. In 2007, Ambrose was sentenced to 11 months in jail for plotting to have his ex-girlfriend and her husband murdered.

His record also includes unrelated convictions on charges of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, theft and assault.

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