Donato Corsetti, a well-known Windham business owner who faced two criminal charges of class A arson for allegedly setting fire to an apartment building he owned on Gray Road, appeared in Cumberland County court Friday where both arson charges were dismissed by a judge, according to assistant district attorney, Jennifer Ackerman, who prosecuted the case.

Corsetti pleaded no contest on a charge of aggravated criminal mischief, a class C felony, as well as charges of reckless conduct and failure to control or report a fire, both misdemeanors, Ackerman said.

Both arson charges, which were dismissed in court Friday because of the no-contest pleas, were punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

According to Ackerman, Corsetti received a two-year sentence to the Maine Department of Corrections with all but six months suspended. He also received two years of probation with conditions that he will undergo a psychological evaluation and counseling and 100 hours of community service in the town of Windham at a place approved by the district attorney’s office.

Corsetti will be admitted to jail on Oct. 28, she said.

“He can’t commit any criminal activity and essentially abide by the standard conditions of probation,” Ackerman said after the hearing. “If he violates any of the probation, he could go back to jail for up to a total of two years.”

Corsetti is the former publisher of the Windham Independent newspaper and the owner of Corsetti’s Market at the corner of Route 202 and Windham Center Road since 1978.

Three months after the Dec. 7 fire at Corsetti’s apartment building, which is next door to the market, lead investigator Chris Stanford of the State Fire Marshal’s Office, and Windham Police Detective Paul Cox, arrested Corsetti without incident outside of his store in Windham Center on March 7.

In a search warrant application dated Dec. 12, 2012, Stanford wrote that Corsetti had burned the building in an attempt to recoup insurance money and that Corsetti attempted to cover up his actions by claiming he was a victim of an organized crime hit stemming from gambling debts.

Corsetti told investigators the night of the fire that two men with ties to the Rhode Island mafia pretended to be interested in renting the middle unit, then bound him in a lamp cord and left him to die in the fire when Corsetti showed them the unit Dec. 7, according to the search warrant application.

He has had two major fires occur at buildings he owned, one in 1998 at his store and another in 2007 at his home, located directly behind the apartment building. The buildings in the previous fires were damaged substantially, but Corsetti was not charged with arson in either incident.

Corsetti was represented by attorneys David Hirshon and Marshall Tinkle of the Portland-based Hirshon Law Group.