Landlord Admits Torching Inhabited Apartment Houses

A La Habra landlord who had vehemently proclaimed his innocence admitted Friday that he set fires in two of his apartment buildings and tried to torch a third.

In both fires, the apartments were occupied by sleeping tenants. The “potential for harm was very great,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Fell said.

Gheorghe Alexandroai, a 64-year-old Romanian immigrant, pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court to eight counts of arson and attempted arson.

Fell said prosecutors plan to seek the maximum sentence: 14 years and 8 months in prison.

In January, 1994, Alexandroai set a fire in an apartment building in the 8600 block of Cerritos Avenue in Stanton, and last April he set a fire in the 1500 block of West Ball Road in Anaheim.

In both cases, investigators found evidence that he had used gasoline, Fell said. No one was injured in the fires, which caused a total of about $62,000 in damage, fire officials said.

Investigators also found evidence that he twice tried to set fire to another property he owns in the 1500 block of West Ball Road in Anaheim. They found a rag trail leading to gasoline-filled cartons, as well as matches.

Fell said evidence gathered at the scene and statements from witnesses, including a tenant who saw Alexandroai near the attic area before a fire, convinced the landlord to plead guilty.

“We just had an abundant amount of evidence against him,” Fell said.

At the time of his arrest, Alexandroai told investigators the blazes were set by disgruntled tenants. In a jailhouse interview later, he told a reporter that he had been set up by investigators who were looking for an easy suspect.

“Upon seeing the evidence we had against him,” Fell said, “it was pretty evident that wasn’t true.”

Alexandroai’s sentencing hearing is set for May 26.

The guilty plea was met with a mixture of joy and relief by the district attorney’s office, firefighters from Orange County, Anaheim and Garden Grove as well as the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, all of which have worked on the case for the past year.

“Arson cases are one of the toughest to prosecute,” Fell said.

Prosecutors are seeking restitution payments that could reach $300,000, Fell said.

In the jailhouse interview, Alexandroai had said he had no reason to want to collect insurance money, because he had about $1.5 million in assets. In 1992, he received $217,000 in insurance money from Farmer’s Insurance Group for a fire at one of his Stanton properties, according to a search warrant.