Five Suspects Charged in Corral Fire

• Arson Investigators Praised for ‘Great Detective Work’ •

By Hans Laetz

The rumors sweeping Malibu last week were correct: sheriff’s investigators used cash register tapes to charge three men from Los Angeles and two teenagers from Culver City with setting the Corral Fire at a predawn outdoor party in the moonlit backcountry on Nov. 24.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca announced Thursday that the men allegedly left partly-burned firewood and snacks at the party site on state parkland—party goods that had been purchased earlier in the evening at a Malibu supermarket.

Baca confirmed reports first printed last week in the Malibu Surfside News that the snacks and firewood had been purchased with plastic money, and that sheriff’s arson squad investigators were able to link specific items found at a campfire at the mountaintop caves with specific purchases using grocery store register tapes.

A search warrant then allowed the investigators to link the purchases by credit or debit card to a specific account holder, Baca said.

“Sheriff’s arson investigators issued a press statement asking for public support in solving the crime, a citizen did respond and offered valuable assistance,” the sheriff said. A young woman who was a member of another group of partiers in the area provided key information about the alleged perpetrators, who were with a second group of people at the site, the sheriff said.

“She was a member of one group, the first group of kids [who] witnessed the second group come up and start the fire,” Baca told the News. “She is a witness, not a suspect.” Baca said investigators went as far as Shasta County near the Oregon border to interview witnesses and suspects. “We know for a fact that items they purchased at the store were left in the debris.”

The suspects include Los Angeles residents Brian Allen Anderson, 22, William Thomas Coppock, 23, and Brian David Franks, 27. Culver City residents Eric Matthew Ullman, 18, and Dean Allen Lavorante, 19, were also charged.

Three of the five suspects were arrested Thursday afternoon, deputies said, with the other two expected to surrender soon.

All will be held pending a bond of about $250,000 each. They are charged with recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure, and arson during an emergency.

All three crimes carry a sentence of between 2-4 years per conviction.

County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky credited arson investigators with “great detective work, great investigative work.” He said, “It is reckless, on top of the illegality, to set a fire anywhere in the mountains when there is a Santa Ana wind condition, as there was that night.”

The arrests came 19 days after the fire swept down Corral, Latigo and Escondido canyons, destroying 53 houses and damaging nearly as many, The Los Angeles County Fire Department has yet to announce a total damages estimate, but the $100 million figure has been speculated.

The five men could be civilly liable for damages, but their assets and ability to repay are dwarfed by the damage done, observers said.

In other fire news, the state fire agency released a tentative report on the injuries incurred by Sacramento-area firefighter Scott Herzog during the early hours of the fire, when he suffered second-degree burns to his face.

A preliminary report said Herzog’s engine was protecting a house at 26160 Fairside Road when a large plastic garbage bin across the street caught fire.

“The firefighter was approximately 3-4 feet from the burning trash can with flames less then a foot tall,” the report said, when the firefighter “sprayed water directly at the base of the flames. When the water hit the burning plastic, a spray of molten plastic and flames enveloped the firefighter.”

Nearby paramedics treated him immediately.