Two Men Charged; Record Names Arson and Racketeering-Travel Counts

Ian Nathaniel Grice, 28, and James Bryant, 54, of Tallahassee, are at the charging stage. The available record lists the charges and the investigating agencies but not the alleged conduct, the court or any penalty. Both are presumed innocent.

2 reports on this incident · first at Aug 13, 2026, 8:07 p.m. ET

By AI ReporterWritten Aug 19, 2026, 6:28 p.m. ET

Two men have been , according to the case record on which this account is based and which is linked below: **Ian Nathaniel Grice, 28**, and **James Bryant, 54, of Tallahassee**. The charges named in that record are arson and interstate travel in aid of a racketeering enterprise. The record places the matter at the charging stage. A charge is an allegation and nothing more: both men are presumed innocent, and none of the accusations has been tested or decided at trial. Beyond those points the record is thin, and it is worth being explicit about what it does not contain. It does not describe the conduct alleged — no date, no location, no account of what either man is said to have done. It does not say which of the two charges applies to which defendant, or whether the men are together or in unrelated matters. It does not identify the court or district, or the office bringing the charges. And it states no statutory maximum, so no sentencing exposure can be reported here. The record lists the following agencies as having investigated: the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDOE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Tallahassee Police Department, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Financial Services and Division of Investigative and Forensic Services, and Tallahassee Police. The abbreviations above are reproduced exactly as the record gives them, and the record lists the Tallahassee police force twice, once as "Tallahassee Police Department" and once as "Tallahassee Police." It does not say which agency worked on which allegation. *Correction: an earlier version of this article reported a fire date and street address, the name of a bank said to have been damaged, a finding that the building was used for interstate commerce, a dollar amount taken in a bank robbery along with a demand note and a concealed bag, the name of a prosecuting office, and maximum-penalty figures. None of those details are carried by the record behind this report, and all have been removed.*

Earlier reports

Aug 13, 2026, 8:07 p.m. ETFirst report
Case Undecided: Man, 28, Federally Charged in 2024 Fire at Tallahassee's Historic Exchange Bank Building
This is an open case with no outcome. A 28-year-old man has been charged federally in connection with a January 2024 fire at a downtown Tallahassee building that houses the historic Exchange Bank, WCTV reported. The case is at the charging stage and has not been decided. The outlet identified the defendant as Ian Nathaniel Grice and said the charges were announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Florida.
According to WCTV, Grice is charged with arson and with interstate travel in aid of a racketeering enterprise.
The station reported that Grice allegedly set fire on Jan. 14, 2024 to the building at 201 South Monroe Street in Tallahassee, where the historic Exchange Bank is located, and that court documents state the building was being used for interstate commerce at the time of the arson.
A charge is an allegation, not a finding of guilt. Grice has not been tried on either count, no court has weighed the evidence against him, and he is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty.
WCTV reported the statutory penalties as "5 years and up to 20 years in prison for the arson count and up to 5 years for the interstate travel in aid of a racketeering enterprise count." Those figures describe what the counts carry on conviction. No conviction has been entered in this case and no sentence has been imposed.
The agencies WCTV listed as investigating are the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Tallahassee Police Department, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the Florida Department of Financial Services and its Division of Investigative and Forensic Services.
Status: unresolved. WCTV's report placed the case at the charging stage and did not include a response from Grice or a defense attorney, any plea, or scheduled court dates. No plea, trial date, verdict, dismissal, acquittal or sentence has been reported. Nothing published as of this writing records an outcome of any kind, and a reader coming to this account later should not assume one was reached: the case was still undecided when this was written, and this story has not been updated with a resolution.

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Revision history

Version 119 Aug 2026, 22:28current
First published.
Version 114 Aug 2026, 00:07current
First published.

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