Ex-Foreman Held in $6-Million Arson at Townhouse Project

A former construction supervisor was arrested and charged with arson Wednesday in a $6-million fire last month that damaged or destroyed 80 units under construction at a Lancaster condominium complex where he worked, authorities said.

The suspect, 26-year-old Gabriel George Cevallos of Lancaster, allegedly told a witness that he set the spectacular June 16 blaze at the Marbella Villas townhouses because he was angry over a wage dispute with a subcontractor, a prosecutor said. Other witnesses reported seeing Cevallos at a telephone booth near the scene just after the fire began, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Damon said.

“He had made some statements before about how he was going to get even,” Damon said. “Afterwards he allegedly made some statements to other employees about how he did it.”

Los Angeles County sheriff’s arson investigators arrested Cevallos at his home Wednesday morning. He was being held at the Antelope Valley station jail on $50,000 bond and was scheduled to be arraigned today, Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Shreves said.

Heat and high winds fanned the fire into an inferno that injured six of the 250 firefighters who battled the blaze for 90 minutes before extinguishing it. Forty of the 127 units were destroyed and another 40 damaged in the complex at 30th Street West and Avenue K-4.

Cevallos headed a five-man crew employed by a Texas-based subcontractor to build the complex’s wooden frames, according to officials at the development company, Hamdan Project Development Corp. of Century City.

Hamdan executives confirmed that Cevallos’ crew and about 30 other framers were upset because they were owed money by the subcontractor, identified by Hamdan officials as Ivan Calder of Texas. They said they paid Calder about $30,000 but he failed to pay framers part of their wages and left town abruptly in May.

Sheriff’s deputies said Cevallos told witnesses he was owed $10,000. But Hamdan Vice President Peter Klaiber said he believed that figure probably represented money owed to Cevallos’ entire crew, which Klaiber said was supposed to be paid directly by the subcontractor. The bulk of the framing work was completed before the fire, he said.

In an attempt to resolve the framers’ complaints, Hamdan paid them part of what they were owed by Calder, and company representatives were negotiating further payment while trying to track down the subcontractor, officials said. Although Cevallos was among the most outspoken of the framers in the dispute, he continued working and served as an interpreter overseeing Spanish-speaking workers during the week before the blaze, they said.

Authorities had investigated the possibility that disgruntled workers might have been involved in the arson partly because workers had been heard threatening to set a fire on June 6, the day a small blaze was put out at the Marbella Villas site. That blaze caused about $5,000 damage to a garage.

But investigators said Wednesday that they have not uncovered any evidence linking Cevallos to the previous fire. They also said there are no other suspects in the June 16 fire.