Man’s Presence at Fires Was a Coincidence, His Lawyer Says : Courts: Douglas Hunziker, a former firefighter trainee, is charged with setting 10 blazes. He often helped put out the flames or evacuate people from the area.

Douglas Hunziker, according to his attorney, is a very, very unlucky young man.

Witnesses at his arson trial said the former firefighter trainee was present at nine of the 10 blazes he is charged with setting, often helping to put out the flames or to evacuate people from the area.

But just because Hunziker, 22, was at nine fires in less than seven months doesn’t mean he started them, defense attorney Darryl Genis said in his closing arguments this week.

“Probably not a one of you has been near an arson fire in the last year, maybe in your life,” Genis told jurors. “We say to ourselves, ‘That could never happen to me.’ . . . (But) it is entirely plausible that Douglas Hunziker is nothing more than a victim of extremely bad luck.”

Twice, police asked prosecutors to file arson charges against Hunziker for a series of fires at his own Torrance home, at his ex-girlfriend’s home, at the Hermosa Beach comedy club where he worked and at the Torrance driving school he attended. Twice, prosecutors rejected the case, saying there just wasn’t enough evidence.

But then in January, an employee at the Red Onion in Redondo Beach told police he saw Hunziker set fire to a toilet seat-cover dispenser in one of the night club’s restrooms.

That made all the difference, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Wilson said.

Police “were watching and waiting, trying to catch him in the act,” Wilson told jurors in Pomona Superior Court, where the criminal case has been moved for scheduling reasons.

“Catching him in the act was the clincher,” Wilson said. “It proves that this guy really does set fires, and it makes his circumstantial connections to all the other fires that much more believable.”

The series of fires began as Fourth of July festivities drew to a close last year, Wilson said, when Hunziker called firefighters in the early morning hours to report a blaze in a trash container in front of his home.

Just over 24 hours later, a four-car garage at the home of Hunziker’s ex-girlfriend in the Hollywood Riviera section of Torrance was set afire, shortly after the couple had broken up. Less than two weeks later, a boat across the street from the girl’s house also was torched, and police took Hunziker into custody for the first time, Wilson said.

Hunziker was released without being charged and, two days after that, a tree two blocks from his house was set ablaze. About three weeks later, a tree and the wall of a house just a few doors down from the Hunziker home were set on fire, Wilson said.

On Nov. 11, two separate blazes were set within 30 minutes at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, where Hunziker was working. Two days later, the club was struck by an arson fire large enough to force evacuation of more than 200 people, Wilson said. Hunziker took an active part in that evacuation.

On Dec. 12, after a blaze was set at a Torrance driving school Hunziker attended, investigators again asked that charges be filed against him. The case again was rejected.

The following month, a small fire consumed a decorative serape hanging on a wall at the Red Onion. Hunziker has not been charged in that blaze, but Redondo Beach investigators gave club employees a flyer with Hunziker’s photograph on it and a warning that he was a suspected arsonist.

An employee spotted him in the club a few days later and tracked him most of the evening, eventually following him into the men’s restroom, Wilson said. When the worker walked in, he saw smoke rising from Hunziker’s stall, where the burned dispenser was discovered. Police were called and Hunziker was arrested.

He has been in custody ever since in lieu of $500,000 bail.

“Time after time in these fires, (Hunziker) has cast himself in the role of a hero,” Wilson told jurors. “This man is a vanity firesetter, a person who gets his fun . . . out of creating a fire situation and then bringing attention on themselves by rescuing people or pulling out a hose and helping to fight the fire.”

Hunziker previously had taken part in a firefighting Explorer Scout Program run jointly by the Boy Scouts and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. From 1989 to 1990, he completed roughly 300 hours of training classes and rode along in engines in Battalion 7, which covers Carson and adjacent unincorporated areas. Authorities expelled Hunziker from the program after he admitted he stole an ambulance driver’s wallet.

Defense attorney Genis noted that another witness to the Red Onion restroom fire testified that he saw a man who bore no resemblance to Hunziker standing near the burning seat-cover dispenser. But Wilson argued that the second witness may have walked into the restroom after an employee had already taken Hunziker out of the room.

Genis urged jurors not to let the final Red Onion fire cloud their consideration of the evidence in the other blazes.

“Each count has to stand or fall on its own,” he said. “You must believe beyond a reasonable doubt time and time again that Douglas Hunziker set each and every fire. . . . And the case that the people have presented against him is absurd. They have proven nothing.”