A woman charged in a fire that destroyed a downtown Raleigh bar was convicted of arson years earlier in New York.

As Eva Marie Torrellas appeared in court for the first time on Wednesday, the judge was looking into a prior arson conviction she had three years earlier in New York.

Police arrested Torrellas a little more than a week after they say she set the House of Art on fire. Surveillance video shows a woman on the porch of the popular Raleigh bar Jan. 7, shortly before it ...