BATON ROUGE — A Texas-based lawyer arrested in 2023 for setting fire to an ex-girlfriend's home after repeatedly violating a restraining order she filed against him pleaded guilty for a second time on Monday after a judge's error voided the previous plea, court records show.

Christian King, 31, pleaded guilty to simple arson and attempted aggravated criminal damage to property. He faces a five-year prison sentence after 12½ years were suspended by the judge. 

King's lawyer Ron Haley says that this was a negotiated plea deal and is the best outcome for both parties.

"My client, he understands what he has to do, he understands that in order to remain free going forward that he must comply with these things," he said.

The woman had previously filed multiple restraining orders against King before he lit the fire at her home in January 2023.

"I reported multiple times, and until the fire, he was just walking free continually harassing me," Breanna Jones told WBRZ in October. "I never feel safe, I am on edge all day, every day. I am in therapy for it trying to get better."

Video from Jones' surveillance system clearly showed King walking up to the home, pouring gasoline on the door and the front porch, lighting it with a match and walking away as the front of the home burst into flames. The fire caused thousands of dollars of property damage, Jones added.

When he set the fire, King had already violated the protective order on seven different occasions since December 2022, a report from the Assured Supervision Accountability Program said. 

According to the Texas Bar Association, King is still eligible to practice law in the state.

King was originally sentenced in May by Judge Eboni Johnson Rose for the arson and violation of protective orders, but the ruling was undone shortly after when the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's office claimed that the sentence was shorter than that required under the law.

Rose vacated the plea and sentence and the case was revisited on Monday.

This is at least the third trial Judge Rose has had to revisit her initial ruling. The first was when she found a former BRPD officer guilty of a crime that didn't exist, then declared him innocent. She also reversed a jury's verdict in the case of a former teacher accused of aggravated assault.