Local business owner awaits verdict
LAX COURTHOUSE — Lawyers made their final arguments Monday in the trial of Anthony Wayne Smith, an ex-Raider accused of setting fire to a Santa Monica furniture and antique store in a calculated act of rage.
Prosecutors alleged Smith, 36, lit the blaze with amateur fire bombs after arguing with the business owner over the value of an item he left to be sold on consignment. Smith, a defensive end with the Raiders in both Los Angeles and Oakland, maintained his innocence and accused police of conducting a weak investigation.
At the core of the case are a handful of partially burnt pieces of mail bearing Smith’s name and address. The papers were stuffed into five-gallon water jugs, which were then filled with gasoline, lit on fire and thrown into the store, investigators said.
The February 2003 fire gutted Simply Sofas and Lona Antiques, conjoined stores on the 2300 block of Lincoln Boulevard. Property damage has been estimated at $900,000 and merchandise lost in the blaze at about $1.2 million. The buildings have stood vacant since the fire, though signs have advertised them as available to rent.
“It is a revenge fire,” said Deputy District Attorney Jean Daly, who paced back and forth in front of the jury box, jabbing her hand into the air. “The littlest things in the world can set off the worst consequences — and this is the perfect example.”
Owner Marilyn Nelson, 56, sat in the courtroom Monday with her daughter, weeping quietly. Nelson grossed some $2.8 million in sales and profited more than $520,000 the year before her stores were set on fire. Prosecutors said Nelson was eliminated as a suspect in the investigation, mostly because she was underinsured.
A fraternity brother of Smith’s, along with more than a dozen religious leaders and friends from St. Augustine’s By-the- Sea, an Episcopalian Church on Fourth Street in downtown Santa Monica, came to show support for Smith. Smith and his wife Teresa, who have three children, were regular church goers and active volunteers.
Michael Houchin, Smith’s lawyer, accused investigators of focusing solely on Smith and said there’s no way the business dispute would prompt arson.
“My client is not guilty of this terrible offense,” said Houchin, who stood at a podium and shuffled yellow legal papers, speaking in a light Southern drawl. “There is no motive for him to do anything, anything like that. What you’ve heard is he’s the suspect from Jump Street... Mr. Smith is not guilty of arson, ladies and gentlemen.”
Houchin last week laid out an alternative explanation as to why Smith’s mail may have appeared in the fire bombs. The documents could have been mistakenly left in an alley behind Simply Sofas by immigrant day laborers Smith hired to help transport items between his franchising business and a storage space in Lancaster, and his condo in a Marina del Rey highrise. Smith had moved to Oakland with the Raiders in the mid 1990s, and much of his mail was taken to storage by an assistant.
Daly contested Smith’s version of events, accusing him of not remembering key details about the workers he hired, and adding the trash would have been picked up at least once between his Jan. 28 visit to the store and the Feb. 13 fire. She maintained the fire was lit after a dispute between Nelson and Smith occurred over a Washington Monument statue he left at the store. The statue, which was worth several hundred dollars, ended up broken. Neither side took responsibility.
“What is the purpose of this arson? To send a message that, ‘No, you are going to pay for the full amount. I was right. You were wrong, Mrs. Nelson,’” Daly told the jury. “What she did not know was that she was dealing with an individual that had an anger problem, that did not like to be told how things were going to happen...
“Did he intend for (the mail) to be found? No. He was unlucky — he was purely unlucky,” Daly added. “Had he been thinking without revenge he would have thought, ‘I need to grab other paper and put it in the bomb.’”
Houchin rebutted Daly’s claim that the trash would have been collected, saying the dumpsters were locked and the boxes may have been overlooked by trash collectors. He also raised a series of questions, mostly targeting Santa Monica Police Department Sgt. Robert Almada, the lead investigator in the case. Houchin accused Almada of leaving key details out of his report and of immediately putting Smith on the defensive during two taped interrogations in July of 2003 at police headquarters. One of the details that became an issue late in the week-long case is a 1996 North Carolina house fire that killed Smith’s step-mother and step-sister, and left his father severely burned. Smith argued he told Almada about the fire during questioning. Almada denied knowledge of it, saying it would have been noted in his reports.
The 1996 fire is important because prosecutors allege Smith, when shown photocopies of the mail in the firebombs, hung his head and began to weep, saying ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Smith said he didn’t cry, but instead became emotional and said he was sorry because Almada had claimed two firemen were hurt. Almada denied saying any firemen were hurt, though two firemen did have to jump from the roof.
Deliberations are expected to resume in the case today. If convicted, Smith faces a maximum of nine years in prison. Smith has been held in lieu of $1 million bond at the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles since his July 2003 arrest.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Keith Schwartz, who is presiding over the case at the Airport Courthouse near LAX, urged lawyers earlier in the trial not to drag out their cases, because of juror conflicts. At the start of trial, officials estimated a verdict would be delivered by jurors no later than Wednesday of this week.
“There could be a lot of deliberations on a case like this, because there’s a mountain of evidence,” Judge Schwartz said Thursday.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 8, 2004. Read the original PDF.