COUNTYWIDE : Prosecutor Defends Arson Arrest Delay

A Riverside County prosecutor Thursday defended his decision to wait 2 1/2 years in arresting a former Israeli beauty queen on charges of arson and insurance fraud involving her Palm Springs home.

Orly Hadida, who was married to Santa Ana surgeon Ron Lapin and acquitted in a highly publicized Orange County child-stealing case in 1988, was arrested by an investigator of the Riverside County district attorney’s office during a monitored visitation with her two children Oct. 18.

Hadida’s attorney, John Horwitz of Santa Ana, criticized the location and timing of the arrest and said it occurred 10 days after she filed for increased visitation time.

But Riverside County prosecutor David B. Downing rejected any notion that her arrest was unfair.

“I don’t know anything about the status of her, her husband or her kids, and I couldn’t care less,” Downing said.

“We needed to take some witnesses’ statements and had to wait. We had heard that she never gave a sworn statement to her insurance company, and then we heard otherwise and had to wait and get the statement,” he said.

The arrest stems from an arson fire at Hadida’s Palm Springs home the night of June 2, 1987. The home, with an estimated value of between $200,000 and $300,000, was awarded to her as a part of her divorce agreement.

Downing, who did not have exact figures, characterized the damage as “substantial” to the structure and its contents.

“At the time, she was separated from her husband, but the home was in her name and not her husband’s, Ron Lapin,” Downing said.

He said Hadida had been living at the home, which was unoccupied at the time of the fire. No one was injured in the blaze.

Palm Springs fire investigators said that flammable liquids were used to set the house on fire, Downing said.

“She made a claim to the insurance company, but they didn’t pay her anything,” Downing said.

Hadida pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of arson and insurance fraud during an arraignment in Palm Springs last month. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled in Palm Springs Jan. 25.

Horwitz said he took exception with the decision to arrest his client in view of the long period after the incident, and that Downing had been quoted in a newspaper as saying that no new dramatic evidence had been uncovered in the investigation.

“I don’t know what the catalyst is,” Horwitz said. “The deputy district attorney in the case says he really hasn’t gotten any new evidence, and then she’s arrested 2 1/2 years later.”

Hadida remains free on $10,000 bail.