42-year-old Raj Ingle, former owner of the Spice of India Restaurant, 8395 Market St. at McClurg Rd., was sentenced to 18 months in jail on charges of arson and insurance fraud on Monday by a visiting judge in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court
      The restaurant Ingle owned was torched on Oct. 8, 2013, causing an estimated $225,000 damage.
      The investigation into the blaze led law enforcement officials to believe that Ingle arranged the fire during a meeting with two men at a restaurant in North Lima. Ingle and two suspected torch men were captured on a surveillance tape at the restaurant.
      On the morning of the fire, near 3:00 a.m., a cell phone that belonged to one of the torch men pinged off a telephone pole across from the restaurant, the investigation showed.
      Additionally, evidence of accelerants was found throughout the burned-out restaurant.
      Judge Thomas Pokorny sentenced Ingle, who owns a home at 10061 Brushwood Dr. in Streetsboro, Oh., and rents an apartment at 31 Carter Circle, #5 in Boardman, to a year in jail on the arson charge and six months in jail on the insurance fraud charge.
      The two torchmen in the blaze, Christopher Reynolds and Jessie Winphrie, as well as Ingle’s niece, Sonia Bhatia, each received jail terms of 20 days and 160 hours of community service for their roles in the arson.
      Additionally, Ingle, Bhatia, Reynolds and Winphrie, were ordered to pay $190,000 in restitution to the owner of the building, Nick Tzarnas. For many years, the Tzarnas family had operated a restaurant, the Town and Country, at the site.
      Ingle had filed an insurance claim following the blaze at the Spice of India. That claim was denied.
      Ingle and Bhatia also operate Jewels and More in the Southern Park Mall.
      In July, 2014, Bhatia said a black man selected some $93,000 worth of jewelry, then ‘took out his wallet as if to pay for the merchandise,’ but fled on foot with the jewelry before paying.
      An investigator in that case suggested an insurance claim filed over that robbery was paid, but at a much lower rate than the claim sought, perhaps no more than $12,000.
      An outstanding warrant is still active from the 2014 robbery and names Brandon Orgdon as a suspect.
      Bhatia was convicted in 2012 of obstruction of justice in a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and was placed on probation for a year and fined $250. That case involved an investigation that was conducted by Austinown police and the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office. A law enforcement official said that Bhatia was less than cooperative when questioned by authorities during their probe.