Five Suspects in Corral Fire Await Next Court Dates

• Men Split in Groups of Three and Two to Be Handled Separately on Same Set of Charges

BY HANS LAETZ

The last of five men accused of arson for the catastrophic $100 million Corral Canyon fire was released on his own recognizance Monday, after county prosecutors said new investigations showed he was not a further threat to society, and would likely show up for his eventual trial.
Brian David Franks, 27, was granted his freedom in Superior Court in Van Nuys and released from the county jail system later that afternoon.
“There has been further investigation continuing in this case, and as a result of that we did not oppose his release,” said the District Attorney’s spokesperson Sandi Gibbons. “He is not a continuing threat to society, nor a flight risk, and as you know those are the two conditions for granting bail that we must consider,” she said.
Last month, Franks’ attorney said his client was a longtime employee at a Starbucks outlet and had friends he was living with, and indicated that he had a criminal record that solely consisted of a seat belt ticket that had been paid. A Los Angeles woman testified that she had taken care of Franks after his mother was killed when he was a teenager, and that he “does not have a criminal bone in his body.”
Franks and co-defendants Brian Allen Anderson, 22, and William Thomas Coppock, 23, are charged with three counts each of arson-related crimes for throwing bundles of stolen firewood onto a small campfire in a cave above Corral Canyon early in the morning Nov. 24.
According to arson investigators, a drunken Anderson kicked the burning logs down a hillside as Santa Ana winds howled, laughing and instructing Franks to try to stomp out the embers. Although defense lawyers say the men put the fire out before leaving the cave that night, arson investigators say the playing with fire sparked the blaze that roared down to the beach and destroyed 53 houses in less than six hours.
The men are charged with causing a fire with great bodily injury, recklessly causing fire to an inhabited structure, and engaging in arson during a state of emergency.
If convicted of that third charge, the three men face a minimum of two years’ state prison time, a charge that one defense attorney said is unwarranted.
Andrew Flier maintains that the Santa Monica Mountains were not in a formally declared state of emergency at the time the brushfire broke out.
The two Culver City teenagers who started the original campfire, Dean Allan Lavorante, 19, and Eric Matthew Ullman, 18, are also charged with the same three crimes in separate proceedings. Prosecutors said their actions were different from those of Anderson, Coppock and Franks, meaning a separate trial will be held for the Culver City residents.
They face a preliminary hearing on Feb. 14.
Under California law, defendants are entitled to a preliminary hearing within 10 court days of their first court appearance, and at that preliminary hearing the state must lay out criminal evidence that is sufficient for a trial. That preliminary hearing was scheduled to begin last Monday, because Franks was still in jail and anxious for court action to proceed.
But his release from jail means that Franks could—like his codefendants already have—waive his right to a speedy preliminary hearing, which defense attorneys usually prefer in order to have more time to prepare their cases.
A date for the preliminary hearing for the three men, when the public will learn more details of the alleged acts on the night of the Corral Fire, is slated to be set on March 3, and the hearing itself will likely be several weeks or months later.