Clark County School District police in July investigate damage from a fire at Roy Martin Middle School. A 15-year-old was charged with arson in the fire, which contributed to a decision to replace the school. Photo by Gary Thompson.

A baby-faced 15-year-old made his first court appearance Thursday on charges he torched the gymnasium of Martin Middle School.

The wiry teen, wearing an orange shirt and blue pants and sporting a reddish-brown Afro-style haircut, barely said a word during the brief hearing in front of Family Court Hearing Master Stephen Compan.

But the boy's attorney, Bob Amundson of the Clark County public defender's office, said the teen adamantly maintains his innocence in the July blaze.

"We are absolutely denying he was involved in starting the fire at Roy Martin Middle School," Amundson said.

He said an investigation by authorities determined that three boys were inside the middle school at the time the fire broke out. The attorney said his client acknowledges he was one of the three boys in the school on East Stewart Avenue at the time, but said his client was not the youth who set some clothes on fire in a second-story storage room, igniting the blaze.

Instead, he said, one of the other boys present started the blaze, then wrongfully accused the 15-year-old who now stands charged.

"He has never admitted to anyone he started the fire," Amundson said of his client.

The two other boys who were at the school when the fire broke out have not been charged with any crime.

"I'm baffled as to why," Amundson said.

District Attorney David Roger said no final decision has been made on whether others will face charges.

"There is a potential that others could be charged," Roger said. "I'm not going to comment any further."

The July 5 fire caused about $7.5 million in damage to the school and was a factor in the Clark County School Board's decision in November to replace the school instead of remodeling it. At 46 years old, it was one of the oldest schools in the district.

The cost of the new school will be about $33 million.

Amundson confirmed that after the fire his client did get in some minor trouble as a freshman at Desert Pines High School, including allegations that he overturned a vending machine, causing about $2,700 in damage.

The boy was subject to expulsion but was allowed to attend a district behavioral school.

The juvenile system's equivalent of a trial is now scheduled for January on the arson charge.

Compan allowed the Review-Journal into the boy's initial court appearance, but he also issued an order saying the news media was being allowed in on the premise that the boy's name wouldn't be printed as a result of Thursday's proceedings.

"The public has an interest to know about (events) in their community," Compan said.

The boy is charged with arson and faces up to a year's confinement in a state youth facility.