Prison for Woman who Torched San Diego Business to Cover Theft

A woman convicted of burning down her former employer’s Southern California business to hide the theft of $744,621 was sentenced to prison, federal prosecutors said.

As the former bookkeeper of Off Road Warehouse’s shop in San Diego, Carey Alice Hernandez was responsible for the company’s finances ahead of the March 2019 fire that destroyed the building, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.

By late 2018, Hernandez “had a problem that she needed to solve,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “Under her watch nearly three-quarters of a million dollars went missing and she knew that the missing money was going to be uncovered in an audit.”

Because the business’s owner was selling the store, located at 7915 Balboa Ave., there was going to be a buyer’s audit, according to prosecutors.

To hide how the company’s funds had disappeared, Hernandez tried to prevent the business’s sale with fake petitions and emails to the prospective buyer and her co-workers, prosecutors said.

She then decided arson was “the only solution,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

Fifteen days before the fire, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Hernandez promised in a real email to another employee that:

“I will continue to cause them grief and make sure you guys are taken care of until I am off FMLA leave, then I will go out with a bang.”

Around 1 a.m. on March 28, 2019, surveillance cameras in San Diego captured Hernandez driving to Off Road Warehouse, where she set the business ablaze, according to prosecutors.

The shop was next to Balboa Veterinary Hospital, which shared a wall with the off-roading business, the sentencing memorandum says.

The animal hospital and other surrounding businesses were saved from the flames, according to prosecutors, who commended firefighters’ “heroic efforts.”

Following a four-day jury trial in April, Hernandez was found guilty of malicious destruction of a building by means of fire, witness tampering and making false statements, prosecutors said.

Now, a judge has sentenced Hernandez, 46, to five years and 10 months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Feb. 21 news release.

Federal public defenders representing Hernandez, who lives in Rathdrum, Idaho, didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Feb. 24.

In a victim impact statement, Hernandez’s former employer, the owner of Off Road Warehouse, wrote that her destruction of his store “has proven to be the most horrific thing that has ever happened to me and my family.”

“The anger I felt was overshadowed by the hurt that Carey would do this to me,” his statement continued. “Carey always stated that I was like a father to her and that she would work tirelessly for me and worst of all I believed her.”

He went on to describe how Hernandez’s betrayal caused him to be distrustful of his loved ones and to question their motives for spending time with him.

How she was implicated in the fire

When Hernandez drove to Off Road Warehouse to burn it down, she traveled in her daughter’s SUV with “distinctive dark colored rims,” prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives started investigating the blaze and focused on the vehicle, according to prosecutors. San Diego’s Metro Arson Strike Team also worked the investigation.

The day after the fire, Hernandez lied to ATF agents and her co-workers by asserting the car had light-colored rims, prosecutors said.

After Hernandez was questioned by the ATF further, she admitted to lying and “told agents that she instructed her daughter to lie for her,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

Marina L. Henri, one of Hernandez’s federal public defenders, asked the court to sentence her to five years in prison ahead of sentencing.

This is the mandatory minimum sentence for individuals convicted of malicious destruction of a building by means of fire, according to prosecutors.

Henri wrote that Hernandez would’ve served about 300 days in custody by Feb. 21, when she was sentenced, that she’s been working to improve herself while detained, and has been contributing “positively to her community.”

According to Hernandez’s former employer, the fire caused him a financial loss of nearly $1.3 million, he wrote in his victim impact statement.

Hernandez is scheduled to return to the federal courthouse in San Diego on March 14 for a restitution hearing, which will determine how much she owes victims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“(Hernandez) intentionally set a dangerous inferno in what appears to have been an attempt to conceal a massive theft,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden said in a statement. “And then she leaned on her minor daughter to try and cover up her crimes.”

“Fortunately, no one was physically hurt, but this devastating loss for ORW, and the extraordinary danger of intentionally setting a fire, demanded accountability,” Haden said. “And today, justice was served.”

Off Road Warehouse didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Feb. 24.

In addition to Southern California, the company has stores in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Nevada.

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