Suspect in Southern California warehouse fire pleads not guilty to arson charges
ONTARIO, Calif. -- The man accused of starting the massive fire that destroyed a sprawling warehouse in Ontario, California, causing an estimated $500 million in damage, pleaded not guilty to charges in court Monday.
Chamel Abdulkarim, a 29-year-old resident of Highland, is facing several arson charges in San Bernardino. He's also been charged in a federal criminal complaint because the items stored in the warehouse were set to be sold and shipped across state lines. He faces several years in prison if convicted as charged on local and federal charges.
"In a phone call to one witness, the defendant compared himself to Luigi Mangione," U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said at a Friday morning news conference, referring to the murder suspect charged in the death of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the United States' biggest health insurer. "Look, America is founded on free enterprise and capitalism. Anyone who attacks our values, our way of life, our system, which provides the best goods and services to the most people, we're gonna come after aggressively."
The inferno erupted around early Tuesday morning last week, destroying the 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse and paper products inside.
"Arson to me is a real head-scratcher," said San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson." I do not understand somebody who is suspected of arson does something where they get no value out of it, other than to displace people from their jobs, to ruin commerce, to get in the way of labor, to put people in physical harm. We want to be certain at least for our residents, as sensitive as we are to arson in this county, particularly in Southern California, that these crimes are taken very, very serious."
Authorities said Abdulkarim was working at the Kimberly-Clark Distribution Center through a third-party company at the time of the fire. No one was injured in the blaze.
Investigators say they are reviewing the video posted to social media, which appears to show cases of toilet paper being set on fire inside a warehouse. In the video, a person repeatedly says he is not paid enough to live on.
A co-worker of the suspect told reporters he had just met Abdulkarim moments before the fire broke out and said there was initially no suspicion that he was involved.
"There was no suspicion that it was him, actually he was missing. So everyone was trying to find him. Everyone was blaming the robots at first. We were almost 100% sure it was the robots until the action in the video of course," said Alex Montero of San Bernardino.
Abdulkarim's next court appearance is May 6.
