Former bookkeeper convicted of burning down Off Road Warehouse in Kearny Mesa

A San Diego federal jury convicted a bookkeeper Monday on four charges related to a fire — and subsequent cover-up — that caused $3.5 million in damage at her employer’s off-road business, prosecutors said.

Carey Alice Hernandez, 46, was found guilty of malicious destruction by means of fire, witness tampering and false statements in connection with the March 28, 2019, blaze that burned down Off Road Warehouse on Balboa Avenue near Convoy Street.

Prosecutors said Hernandez burned the building down before an audit revealed that more than $744,000 of company funds had gone missing under her watch between January 2015 and March 2019. She then lied to federal investigators and tried to convince other company employees that a car seen in surveillance footage the morning of the blaze was not hers.

“While it is extremely fortunate that no one was physically hurt in this blaze, it was a devastating loss for the company,” said U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath in a news release after the conviction. “This defendant used arson, tampering with witnesses, and deceit to put the community in danger, but the jury held her accountable.”

Hernandez’s attorney, Keith Rutman, was unavailable to comment Tuesday.

According to prosecutors, the owner of Off Road Warehouse, which sells automotive parts and off-road gear, decided in late 2018 to sell his business.

Before the sale was completed, Off Road Warehouse’s owner told investigators that Hernandez was “concerned about the sale,” according to court document’s filed by prosecutors.

Prosecutors said that, in an attempt to prevent the sale, fraudulent emails were sent to the prospective buyer from an IP addresses connected to Off Road Warehouse and Hernandez’s home saying there was a pending lawsuit against the company.

Hernandez also wrote a private email to a coworker expressing her displeasure about the sale. She also said she’d “go out with a bang,” according to court documents.

On the morning of the fire, prosecutors said Hernandez drove to the 12,700-square-foot building in Kearny Mesa around 1:15 a.m. and started the blaze, burning the business to the ground along with everything inside, prosecutors said.

The blaze was later determined to have been the result of two fires started at the business using combustible material and ignitable liquid, prosecutors said in court documents.

It was the second fire in just four months at the warehouse.

The defense argued in court filings that Hernandez did not start the fire because she could not have believed that burning the building down would have prevented an audit and the discovery of the missing funds.

Rutman also said prosecutors did not have sufficient proof to connect Hernandez to the forged emails or other evidence.

But prosecutors said detectives found surveillance video showing someone coming and going from the scene in a “dark rimmed SUV.” Local surveillance video also showed the dark-rimmed SUV driving to and from Hernandez’s house around the same time in the early morning hours.

The day after the fire, Hernandez learned about the vehicle description provided by investigators. She texted other employees in an attempt to convince them her car’s rims were a different color than the one’s seen on the SUV in the video, prosecutors said.

A team of at least 25 agents and experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called to help local fire officials dig into the case, officials said at the time.

Hernandez is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Staff writer Alex Riggins contributed to this report.