How to resolve AdBlock issue? Based on the outcome of the preliminary hearing, Damin Anthony Pashilk, 43, could face trial on 23 charges for setting the Clayton fire in August 2016 and 15 other fires between July of 2015 and August of 2016, as well as an attempted start of a 17th that self-extinguished.
The proceedings so far have stretched across seven days over the course of several weeks due to scheduling challenges.
On Thursday, as on Wednesday, the proceedings were cut short when the defense raised an issue with having access to the information used by the prosecution in building its case.
Defense attorney Mitchell Hauptman said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Branden Smith, who had testified on Wednesday about his surveillance of Pashilk, had referenced the collection of information about license plates of vehicles seen on surveillance cameras placed near areas where a rash of fires had been set in 2015. Hauptman wanted to see that information.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff, who said he had just found out about the issue, explained that after the first four fires, Smith and other investigators were reviewing camera data and logging license plate numbers, and putting them on an Excel spreadsheet.
In 2015 they were working at the Middletown fire station when the Valley fire broke out in September. They grabbed their computer equipment and left, and Smith believed the information was on the computer he had with him.
Judge Andrew Blum found Hauptman’s request for the information relevant and recessed while Hinchcliff and other members of the prosecution team went with Smith to the District Attorney’s Office to look for the information on the computer.
Hauptman later asked for Smith’s testimony to continue on Friday to give him time to review the materials.
Sheriff’s lieutenant discusses interview following arrest
Hinchcliff was able to call an alternate witness on short notice, Lt. Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Paulich testified to being part of the team that interviewed Pashilk at the Lake County Sheriff’s Office on August 15, 2016, the day he was arrested and two days after the Clayton fire began near Lower Lake.
Cal Fire had been tracking Pashilk for more than a year by that point, and wanted him for questioning. Earlier that day, Deputy Ben Moore conducted a vehicle stop on Pashilk and arrested him for driving on a suspended license.
Pashilk was in the interview room by himself, with Paulich and other investigators monitoring him on video, when Paulich said he saw Pashilk take something from his shoe and swallow it. Pashilk admitted that it was a “scraper bag” of meth, and that he hadn’t wanted to be caught possessing.
Paulich said he Mirandized Pashilk, who he interviewed along with Cal Fire investigator Jim Engel and sheriff’s Det. John Drewrey.
During the interview, Pashilk acknowledged to investigators that had had been in prison a couple of times for drugs. He also mentioned that he had fought fires during his second term in prison with a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fire camp and admitted to still using drugs.
Paulich said Pashilk maintained throughout the interview that he hadn’t set any fires, despite Paulich telling him they had evidence he was responsible.
When asked why he was in the area of the Morgan fire on July 21, 2016, he said he had a friend who lived in the area. Paulich told him he had been followed so they knew his movements.
Paulich also spoke with Pashilk about using cigarettes to start fires, which Pashilk had told him he didn’t think could be done because of cigarettes having something in them to prevent them from igniting when people aren’t smoking them.
Pashilk also had told investigators that he wasn't aware of the many small fires occurring around the county.
Regarding the Morgan fire on July 21, 2016, Pashilk confirmed that he had been driving a Chrysler Sebring that was spotted in the fire area on surveillance video that day. He also had been in the area of the Sulphur fire on July 26, 2016, telling the detectives that he had a friend out there and he went out to smoke marijuana and look at the lake.
On Aug. 7, 2016, the date the Agua fire burned near Lower Lake, Pashilk said he had been in the area to change clothes and smoke a marijuana cigarette, which he threw out of the car – a common practice for him, according to what he told investigators – and drove away. Later in the day, he drove back by and saw burned grass.
Investigators had been tracking Pashilk and knew that account wasn’t accurate, Paulich said.
Pashilk said he didn’t know why there were fires everywhere he went, and when the investigators told him they thought he wasn’t telling the truth, Paulich said. Pashilk still maintained he didn’t set the fires.
While explaining to investigators about why he drove on some backroads, Pashilk said it was because he had a suspended driver’s license.
The investigators told him that a GPS tracker was on his vehicle, to which Pashilk replied, “OK,” Paulich told the court.
Paulich said Pashilk also told them he hadn’t driven around to look at fires with a female acquaintance, with whom he was photographed on Aug. 13, 2016, watching the Clayton fire.
At one point, Det. Drewrey entered the interview and told Pashilk that if he had to tell his boss about all of the evidence, how could he explain that Pashilk wasn’t responsible. Paulich said Pashilk made a comment to the effect of, “If it walks and quacks like a duck …”
Pashilk also denied throwing a matching or flaming napkin out of the vehicle window. “He said he wouldn't do that,” Paulich said.
Hauptman asked if a “be on the lookout” notice regarding Pashilk was issued to law enforcement on Aug. 15, 2016.
Paulich said law enforcement units had been told to be on the lookout for him and to contact him, but not arrest him, based on a meeting the sheriff’s office had the day before with Cal Fire investigators.
Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Friday.
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