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New Kids' Wahlberg charged with arson

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Donnie Wahlberg of the pop sensation New Kids on the Block was arrested Wednesday and charged with setting a small fire with vodka in the hallway of a hotel where the group was staying.

Wahlberg, 21, of Braintree, Mass., turned himself into the Louisville Fire Department's arson squad Wednesday afternoon after an arrest warrant was issued charging him with first-degree arson.

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He pleaded innocent at his district court arraignment -- as young fans crowded outside -- and was released on $5,000 cash bail. A pretrial conference was scheduled for April 11, authorities said.

Meanwhile, two of the band's security guards were arrested on disorderly conduct charges after they were allegedly abusive to hotel workers and police while trying to fend off a crowd of young girls clamoring to see the band members.

Also, police questioned 11 minor-age girls on undisclosed allegations against New Kids members, but said they found nothing to substantiate the accusations.

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Louisville Fire Chief Russell Sanders said the small fire broke out about 2 a.m. on the ninth-floor hallway carpet of the downtown Seelbach Hotel. The blaze was started when vodka on the carpet was ignited, Sanders said.

Media reports said Wahlberg poured the vodka onto the carpet and set it ablaze after an argument with a girl. The chief did not confirm the reports, saying authorities were still investigating.

'We have witnesses that indicate (Wahlberg) started a fire on the ninth floor in the hallway, and at this point that's all we really have, ' Sanders said.

Another witness told authorities Wahlberg tried to extinguish the blazehimself unsuccessfully. The fire was eventually put out with an extinguisher by an unknown person, Sanders said. No injuries were reported.

In an unrelated incident about 30 minutes later, Louisville police arrested two band security guards at the hotel on disorderly conduct charges.

Police said two -- Randy Jones, 33, of San Francisco, and Marcus Johnson, 32, of Huntington Beach, Calif. -- had been trying to control a large crowd of mostly young girls 'trying to get up on the upper floors to find the band members.'

'The two guards were cursing, they were loud and abusive to hotel workers, the hotel desk clerk,' Louisville Police Sgt. Carl Yates said. 'When the officers tried to calm them down, they became abusive to the officers and they were arrested on disorderly conduct.'

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Yates declined to disclose the allegations involving the minor-age girls and band members, which was investigated by the police Crimes Against Children Unit.

'They interviewed 11 different young women, ages 14-18, who were in the hotel last night and early this morning,' Yates said. 'And as a result of those interviews, they developed no information to substantiate any reports of wrongdoing by the band members.'

The New Kids planned to perform a concert at Freedom Hall in Louisville as scheduled Wednesday night. A spokeswoman for Bob Woolf, the group's Boston-based business manager, said Woolf was looking into the entire incident and had no comment.

Fans of the pop group crowded outside the Seelbach Hotel and then at the city's Hall of Justice as word spread about Wahlberg's arraignment.

The New Kids had enjoyed a reputation for being squeaky clean, but that image was tarnished last year.

A Houston, Texas, teenager, Melissa Cantu, 19, said last December that she had sex with three of the New Kids who 'passed me around until I was thrown away.'

On Sept. 2, 1990, a Harvard student, Benjamin Dattner, 20, charged that he was attacked by Wahlberg on an airliner when he refused to give up his seat on the plane.

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A Foxboro, Mass., man in August alleged he was attacked by a body guard for group member Joe McIntyre at a bar in Quincy, Mass.

Two of Wahlberg's brothers were also arrested for disorderly conduct last summer after an altercation outside the family home in Braintree, after teenage girls flocked to the neighborhood in hopes of spotting Wahlberg.

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