The trial of a man accused of setting a series of fires because he wanted to burn down Indian casinos in San Diego County, California began last week.
The man, Jonathan Cohen, 45, is from Poway, and prosecutors accuse him of setting a series of fires in 2014 and 2016 because he was trying to burn down first the Barona Resort & Casino in East County and then Valley View Casino in Valley Center, North County.
Prosecutors base the allegation on a supposed confession he made to a fellow inmate in jail and not because he was caught in the act. He is accused of setting five small fires, four on a road near Valley View Casino and one near Barona casino. Prosecutors also hope to link him to three other fires near Barona, although he hasn’t been charged with setting them. All of the fires were kept under three acres. All were likely set by burned casino matchbooks.
Deputy District Attorney Andrew Aguilar in his opening statement to jurors last week said, “One of the things he said to him was I hate casinos and wanted to see them burn down.”
Cohen’s defense attorney for his part called the prosecution witness a “lying snitch.”
Prosecutors are not relying entirely on the statement of Cohen’s jail mate. They also note that Cal Fire, the statewide fire department, had been watching Cohen for several months before he was arrested in the summer of 2015. They think he may have set many more blazes going back ten years.
Their theory is that he gambled at the casinos and then set fires afterwards along the rural roads. Video camera surveillance recordings, a license plate reader and a GPS tracking device that Cal Fire investigators attached to his vehicle place him in the immediate vicinity of several small brush fires. Information provided by the two casinos also placed him at each of them before the fires.
Although, once again, no one actually saw him set the fires and Cohen’s defense attorney told jurors that all of the evidence is circumstantial.
He said, “About, approximately, at or near, maybe, might have been, could have been — those are words you’re going to hear repeatedly at this trial with regard to where Mr. Cohen’s vehicle was in a range of time.” He added, “You’re not going to hear any specificity with regards to time or location.”
The defense noted that the informant had been paid to testify against others previously and had asked for a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony this time.
If Cohen is convicted he could spent up to 11 years in prison.
