2 Firefighters File Defamation Suit

Two firefighters implicated as arson suspects in last year’s Calabasas-Malibu fire filed a lawsuit Monday charging Los Angeles County and Sheriff Sherman Block with defaming them and violating their civil rights, according to their attorney.

Nicholas A. Durepo and Steven R. Shelp filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, asking for unspecified damages, said Larry R. Feldman, who is representing both men.

The lawsuit was expected. It is a follow-up to administrative claims against Block and the county that the two men filed in September, to no effect. The law requires that such claims be filed prior to a lawsuit.

Feldman contends that both men were innocent victims of Sheriff Block, who was motivated, he said, by reelection concerns when he disclosed on national TV that Durepo and Shelp were suspected of setting the fires.

Even after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said last July that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Shelp and Durepo, Block continued to harm the men’s reputations by refusing to admit he was wrong, Feldman said.

A county grand jury declined to indict the two firefighters last summer after weeks of testimony, including hearing from a contractor who corroborated Shelp’s and Durepo’s version of events.

Durepo, 24, and Shelp, 29, say they were driving along Old Topanga Canyon Road in Calabasas, off duty, when the fire began last November, and they tried to put it out with equipment they had in their car.

News photographers, who arrived at the site where the blaze began, filmed them hosing down a burn victim as they tried to put out the first flames that went on to consume thousands of acres between Topanga Canyon and Malibu. The contractor told the grand jury that he provided the men with a special adapter they needed to connect their water hose to a hydrant to fight the fire.

Shelp, of the San Fernando Valley, was recently hired by the Los Angeles Fire Department but was confined to desk duty as a result of Block’s disclosures, the lawyer said.

Durepo, from the South Bay area, was working as a part-time reservist for the Manhattan Beach and Culver City fire departments. He was terminated by both departments.