Fire Informant Implicates Store Owner : Thousand Oaks: Warrant says jailed suspect expected to be paid from insurance funds. But Myron Cohen-Ross denies hiring him.

A suspect charged with the arson of a Thousand Oaks comic book store told a sheriff’s informant that he expected to be paid for setting the fire after the shop’s owner collected insurance money, according to a search warrant made public Friday.

The informant also quoted arson suspect Christopher Nagano, 20, as saying that store owner Myron Cohen-Ross removed a carload of his most valuable comic books from his Heroes and Legends store before it was gutted by fire Sept. 18, according to a detective’s sworn statement filed as part of the search warrant.

Nagano told the sheriff’s informant that it was his idea to spray-paint swastikas and other anti-Semitic writing on the building to make the fire look like a hate crime, the warrant says.

Summing up the allegations of the informant in a sworn statement, Senior Deputy David Ehrlich wrote:

“This informant stated that he had information that shows the victim in the arson, Myron Cohen-Ross, had his store burned for profit.”

A former employee at the Thousand Oaks store also told investigators about the removal of inventory before the fire, according to the warrant. In addition, the onetime employee said Cohen-Ross had serious financial problems due to gambling, according to the warrant.

Cohen-Ross vehemently denied the allegations.

“Nagano is lying, that’s all I can say,” Cohen-Ross said Friday after reading the warrant at his remaining comic book store in Agoura Hills. “I never hired Nagano to torch the store. I never talked to Nagano other than as a customer in the store.”

Cohen-Ross acknowledged that he gambles, but not in amounts that would cause financial problems. “In the worst week in my life maybe I lost $100,” he said. “ . . . I’ve never been in serious financial difficulties because of my gambling.”

Cohen-Ross also said he had no economic motive to burn his store because he was insured for only $50,000. He said the lost contents had cost him $225,000 and were worth $350,000 at retail prices. He denied moving out his most valuable inventory before the fire.

The search warrant, filed in Ventura County Municipal Court, provided the most detailed account yet of the changing focus of the arson investigation.

After the fire, which gutted the Heroes and Legends store and damaged two other businesses, both the FBI and local authorities said they were investigating it as the latest in a series of hate crimes in the Conejo Valley. The blaze created an outpouring of sympathy for Cohen-Ross and his family, including a benefit rally that featured speakers who denounced anti-Semitism.

On Friday, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury acknowledged the shift of the investigation for the first time by saying: “We’re satisfied it’s not a hate crime.” He declined to specify what prosecutors now consider to be the motive, but said: “We have not excluded Mr. Cohen-Ross as a suspect.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Dante Honorico said the hate-crime theory “is getting fuzzier and fuzzier as we go on with this case.” As for Cohen-Ross’s possible involvement, Honorico said there are several suspects.

“I can tell you definitely that we do not anticipate arresting Mr. Cohen-Ross any time soon,” Honorico said.

He said Nagano, who has been charged with arson and is being held on $500,000 bail, has spoken with investigators, but Honorico declined to disclose what was said.

Gary Auer, head of the Ventura office of the FBI, said his agency will complete its civil-rights investigation. “There is a federal arson statute that would be applicable in this case even if it turns out not to be a civil rights violation,” Auer said.

Auer said the FBI also has provided technical enhancement of an eight-minute videotape of the fire that prosecutors obtained during their investigation.

According to the search warrant, the sheriff’s informant--identified as Jason Kinzer--told investigators that he saw the videotape at Nagano’s home in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 8. The informant said the tape showed someone walk up to the store, break the glass in the transom above the front door, light an unidentified object, and throw the object inside, where it burst into flames, according to the warrant.

The warrant quotes Kinzer as saying that Nagano told him that he was operating the video camera when the tape was made. The document does not say whether the informant was told the identity of the person seen in the video.

Kinzer told investigators that Nagano said it was his idea to use a flammable liquid to start the blaze, according to the warrant, which said investigators found traces of gasoline in the remains of the fire.

Kinzer, 20, of Thousand Oaks declined to discuss the case Friday. Nagano’s mother, Zenaida Nagano, identified Kinzer as an acquaintance of her son but declined to discuss the case on the advice of her son’s attorney.

In his interview with investigators, Kinzer said Nagano told him that after removing the more expensive items from the store, Cohen-Ross allowed several friends to take whatever they wanted from the remaining stock, according to the search warrant. Nagano told Kinzer that he took several boxes of comics from the store, the warrant said.

When investigators searched the Nagano family’s home on Nov. 13, two days after his arrest, they found three boxes of comic books in a den closet, according to the warrant. They also seized a video camera, a homemade flame thrower, a shotgun and a stun gun, the warrant said.

According to the warrant, it was only hours after the early-morning fire that investigators got their first tip that Cohen-Ross might be involved. Jeff Leaverton, a former employee at the store, told Senior Deputy Ehrlich that three days earlier, Cohen-Ross loaded down his car with items from his Thousand Oaks store and moved them to the Agoura Hills store, according to Ehrlich’s affidavit.

Leaverton also said Cohen-Ross had “serious financial difficulty” because of gambling, Ehrlich wrote. The investigator wrote that he also spoke with another Heroes and Legends employee, Lance Leedy, who confirmed that Cohen-Ross did “gamble from the back room of the business” but used his own money rather than business funds.

In an Oct. 6 interview with investigators, Cohen-Ross acknowledged that business had been bad at the Thousand Oaks store and that he had tried to sell it earlier in the year, Ehrlich wrote. However, the detective wrote, “he denied that he was in such financial straits that he would consider arson.”

Interviewed at the Agoura hills store Friday, Cohen-Ross said Leaverton is a disgruntled former employee who had vowed to get revenge after being discharged about two weeks before the fire. “Mr. Leaverton is an absolute liar who is angry because I fired him,” Cohen-Ross said.

As for his efforts to sell the store, Cohen-Ross said he put the store on the market in early 1992 but found no takers. He decided to keep the shop after business picked up in May, he said.

Cohen-Ross acknowledged that he moved about 12 boxes of cheap science-fiction magazines from the Thousand Oaks store to the Agoura Hills store shortly before the fire. He said he planned to have them repackaged in plastic bags at the Agoura Hills store, where he routinely has children do the work in exchange for comic books or other merchandise.

He said the Thousand Oaks store was loaded with good merchandise when it burned, including four gold records valued at $1,000 each.

The search warrant said Kinzer first called investigators anonymously about Oct. 19, saying he had heard from another source that Nagano and Cohen-Ross were involved in the fire. On Nov. 9, the informant called again and said he had seen the tape at Nagano’s home, the affidavit said.

The next day, Kinzer walked into the East Valley Sheriff’s Station and identified himself as the informant, the affidavit says. “He said that he has thought his role over and decided that he would come forward and testify openly in court,” Ehrlich wrote.

Nagano is scheduled to appear in Muncipal Court on Wednesday to enter a plea and to seek a bail reduction.

Times correspondent James Maiella Jr. contributed to this story.