Store Owner Implicated in Fire : Thousand Oaks: Warrant says jailed suspect expected some of the insurance money for torching shop.

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,” he 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 there are several suspects, but “I can tell you definitely that we do not anticipate arresting Mr. Cohen-Ross any time soon.” 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 FBI office, said his agency will complete its 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.

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.”

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 investigators 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.

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.

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, where he planned to have them repackaged in plastic bags.

Times correspondent James Maiella Jr. contributed to this story.