Pair Who Lit Original Corral Bonfire Get
Arraignment Delay
• Cases Continue on Separate Tracks
Arraignment for two Culver City men accused
of setting the disastrous Corral Canyon fire last fall has been
postponed for the third time.
The appointment of a new deputy prosecutor
on the case prompted both sides to request a continuation on
the case until July 11. At that time, bail will be
reviewed and a date for a preliminary hearing, where the
charges will be laid out in public, will be set.
Dean Allan Lavorante was 19, and Eric
Matthew Ullman was 18 last year, when they allegedly started a
small bonfire inside a “rave cave” where Corral
Canyon Road dead-ends in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Three Los Angeles men, portrayed by
Lavorante and Ullman’s attorneys as
“toughs,” arrived at the cave and kicked the Culver
City teens and their girlfriends out. The trio then reportedly
got drunk and kicked burning logs down a cliff into surrounding
brush as hot Santa Ana winds whipped through the area on the
weekend after Thanksgiving.
Those men, Brian Allen Anderson,
then 23, William Thomas Coppock, then 23, and Brian David
Franks, then 27, face a preliminary hearing date-setting
on June 10.
Last Friday, Commissioner Michael Kellogg
granted Lavorante permission to leave California
briefly. He is working on a commercial fishing boat that will
leave the state’s waters this summer, said his attorney,
Mark Werksman.
Attorneys estimate that $450 million worth
of property at 53 houses, as well as numerous outbuildings and
vehicles, went up in flames in the eight hours after the
bonfire was set.
All five defendants have entered not
guilty pleas, and there is the possibility of three or more
separate court proceedings if any or all of the five men
testify against each other, attorneys said.
