Main Line doctor pleads guilty to setting fire to a 99-year-old grandmother’s home and threatening her family
Amy Cohen targeted the 99-year-old Lower Merion woman because her granddaughter was dating a man who recently broke up with Cohen.
A Main Line doctor pleaded guilty Wednesday to setting a fire at the home of a 99-year-old Lower Merion woman and sending her antisemitic threats after the woman’s granddaughter began dating the doctor’s ex.
Amy L. Cohen, 36, of Narberth, entered the plea to arson, terroristic threats, stalking, and reckless endangerment during a brief hearing before Montgomery County Court Judge Wendy Rothstein. She will be sentenced in the coming weeks.
As part of the negotiation, prosecutors dismissed a charge of attempted murder.
Her attorney, John McMahon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cohen worked as an infectious-disease physician at Bryn Mawr Medical Specialist Association and saw patients at Bryn Mawr Hospital, according to an archived staff bio on the practice’s website. Her medical license was suspended after her arrest, expired in October, and was not renewed, state records show.
Prosecutors said Cohen sprayed lighter fluid on the front porch of the woman’s home in Lower Merion Township on Nov. 30, 2023, and set it ablaze in an incident that was recorded by the home’s Ring security camera.
Cohen’s former boyfriend, who had been dating one of the woman’s granddaughters, recognized her in the footage and notified police, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Cohen’s arrest. He told police Cohen had not handled their recent breakup well and had been obsessively following him and his new girlfriend on social media.
Surveillance footage from the area captured a vehicle matching the description of Cohen’s traveling through the neighborhood on the night the fire was set, the affidavit said. And she was later seen entering her apartment wearing clothing similar to that of the arsonist.
While serving search warrants on Cohen’s home and vehicle, investigators discovered an empty bottle of lighter fluid, a note with the elderly woman’s name and home address, and threatening letters about the woman’s granddaughters, the affidavit said.
The letters found in Cohen’s home were similar to one the grandmother found taped to her door days before the fire that included photos of her granddaughters with Xs over their eyes. The letter said the woman’s granddaughters will “both get hurt” if they didn’t move out of Pennsylvania, according to the affidavit.
The girls’ father had received a similar letter accusing the women of “promoting Islamophobia” with their support for Israel during its ongoing war with Hamas, and promising to hurt the women if they didn’t leave the state.