Owner of DTLA building where explosion hurt 12 firefighter avoids jail time

The proprietor of a downtown Los Angeles constructing the place an explosion injured 12 firefighters has been allowed to enter a judicial diversion program that permits him to keep away from jail time and probably have all fees dismissed.

A court docket commissioner on Wednesday granted the diversion request for Steve Sungho Lee. He and his firms should pay greater than $15,000 in investigative charges, be sure that the property meets hearth and constructing codes and arranging for Fireplace Division coaching.

Lee owned a business constructing on East Boyd Road within the metropolis’s Toy District that caught hearth on Could 16, 2020. Firefighters needed to run for his or her lives when a ball of flames shot out the constructing and scorched a hearth truck throughout the road.

Firefighters contained in the constructing needed to run by a wall of flames he estimated as 30 toes (9 meters) excessive and vast, and people on the roof scrambled down a ladder that was engulfed in hearth.

Fireplace officers stated the constructing was a warehouse for Smoke Tokes, a wholesale distributor of provides for smoking and vaping merchandise together with butane hash oil, a concentrated hashish extract that may be eaten, smoked or vaped. Extremely flammable butane is used within the manufacturing course of.

A lot of the injured firefighters nonetheless haven’t returned to work and one, Capt. Victor Aguirre, was hospitalized for greater than two months and all of his fingers needed to be partially amputated, based on a lawsuit he filed towards the constructing and enterprise house owners.

Aguirre alleged that the realm contained “lots of of illegally and improperly saved butane canisters and hundreds of illegally and improperly saved nitrous oxide cylinders.”

A fireplace division report concluded that the blaze, which unfold to a close-by constructing, was fueled by an “extreme amount” of the containers.

Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives concluded that the fireplace began underneath a storage rack within the constructing and {that a} employee with a lit cigarette was seen within the space. The reason for the fireplace was dominated unintentional.

Nonetheless, metropolis prosecutors filed greater than 300 misdemeanor fees of violating hearth and security codes towards Lee, his firms and house owners of companies within the constructing and close by properties. That included greater than 160 counts towards Lee and his firms.

If Lee meets all circumstances of his judicial diversion program for 2 years, the costs can be dismissed.

“Mr. Lee can be deemed by regulation to have by no means been charged,” stated his legal professional, Blair Berk. “The exhaustive federal investigation of the tragic hearth objectively concluded that the trigger was unintentional, and there was no discovering of any wrongdoing by Mr. Lee or his firms.”

Metropolis Lawyer Mike Feuer opposed diversion for Lee, noting the severity of the fireplace, the accidents suffered by the firefighters and Lee’s alleged failure “to take steps which may have mitigated the extent of the blaze.”

The house owners of Smoke Tokes and one other enterprise, Inexperienced Buddha, agreed in November 2020 to pay $139,000 every to cowl investigative prices and to maneuver out of the constructing. Costs towards them have been later dismissed.

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This story has been up to date to right that Lee and his firms should pay greater than $15,000, not $125,000.