AeroTech facing no criminal charges

Mary Manning and Launce Rake

Monday, Feb. 10, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

Citing a botched investigation, Clark County officials have decided against criminal charges for a model rocket manufacturer in an October 2001 fatal fire.

AeroTech, the company that ran the plant in eastern Las Vegas, continues to pursue a civil case against the county. The company blames the Clark County Fire Department for the second, more dangerous part of the fire, which killed one person, seriously injured at least two others and destroyed five nearby businesses.

County Manager Thom Reilly said the fire has led to improvements in fire investigations, training, prevention and inspections. The county also is seeking to dismiss AeroTech's civil suit.

"I still have concerns about the way the fire was investigated, but the investigation has nothing to do with the way the fire started or how it was handled," Reilly said Monday.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger announced late Friday that the county would not seek criminal charges against AeroTech because fire investigators failed to obtain a search warrant.

The new district attorney said that fire investigators entered AeroTech and seized evidence after two damaging fires on Oct. 15, 2001.

"Prosecution would be difficult given the issues surround the evidence," Roger said. "I want to emphasize that this does not mean that no crimes were committed."

Last August Reilly called the county fire deparement's post-fire investigation "a horrible job" and said a criminal case could not have gone forward without assistance from state fire marshals.

Reilly said today that dropping the criminal investigation does not weaken the county's position in the civil case, and Mary-Anne Miller, deputy district attorney, said the action on the criminal investigation should not impact the county's civil defense.

"We've kept the civil track and the criminal track completely separate," she said.

But AeroTech's lawyer Cole Wist said mistakes in the investigation are central to the company's case against the county.

"For them to say these constitutional deficiences have nothing to do with the civil case could not be farther from the truth," Wist said. "We have been asking since they seized this evidence: What did you take? What did you do with it? When can we see it? Now we're being told that the inspections log is missing," he said.

Wist said AeroTech's legal team is "very interested in the documents" that now, because the criminal investigation is over, will be open for the company to review.

The county and the company have traded allegations on which is responsible for the fire, particularly the huge explosion of magnesium in the second phase of the fire.

The company has insisted that the fire department was responsible for the explosion.

In August, Reilly said the state Office of Public Safety concluded that AeroTech's negligence caused the fire and then-District Attorney Stewart Bell announced a criminal investigation into the issue.

Bell refused to release AeroTech's evidence gathered in the investigation. Roger, who assumed Bell's post in January, said it took five months to conclude the criminal case was flawed.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro threw out much of an AeroTech suit against the county in August. The suit charged that the Clark County Fire Department was responsible for the secondary magnesium explosion.

Pro allowed to stand a portion of the suit regarding the post-fire investigation, which the county is also seeking to have dismissed.

The fire's legacy has been stronger county zoning rules to keep similar industrial plants away from residential areas. Reilly said it also has improved the county's approach to fire safety at industrial sites.

Other steps the county has taken include: