A Stafford County, Va., grand jury has indicted man it says burned his own home as part of a fraud scheme to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from an insurance settlement.

Albert Lee Morgan III, 46, of Stafford, Va., was indicted on several charges, including arson and obtaining money by false pretenses, according to The Free Lance-Star newspaper in Fredericksburg, Va.

Morgan has been under investigation by county fire marshals since Dec. 11, 2008, when his home in the Crown Manor neighborhood of Stafford caught fire, resulting in an estimated $500,000 worth of damage, according to the report.

Citing court records, the Free Lance-Star said that Morgan blamed the fire on negligent wiring by an electrician he hired a day prior to the fire and submitted to his insurer, Nationwide Insurance, a claim for more than $700,000 in damages.

Fire marshals, however, determined that the fire was deliberately set.

The report said it was unclear how much money Morgan received from Nationwide in claims from the blaze.

In addition to the fraud-related charges, Morgan also faces two counts of possessing firearms as a felon. In 1984, he was convicted of multiple grand larceny charges and in 1998, he was convicted on a firearms possession charge, the newspaper reported.

Both a fire investigator and a Nationwide agent said that Morgan had numerous guns in his home at the time of the fire. Morgan withdrew claims involving guns damaged in the fire after the insurance agent asked him about being a felon and having them in his possession, according to a court affidavit.