Jury selection in the trial of Justin Halstenberg continued early this week, involving careful maneuvering by the defendant’s defense team to prevent individuals familiar with the case or sympathetic to sheriff’s and firefighting officials from making it onto the panel that will weigh Halstenberg’s contention that he had nothing to do with igniting what was the fourth most extensive forest conflagration in recorded San Bernardino County history.
Pretrial documents outlining evidence, exhibits and witnesses along with motions filed with the court in the run-up to what is expected to be a trial of two month’s duration provide a sprawling but relatively clear and encapsulated preview of the case that is to be made by prosecutors. At the same time, the terse and relatively sparse show of evidence deemed by Halstenberg’s two defense attorneys as exculpatory and a short witness list indicates that their strategy hinges on convincing what they hope will prove to be a broadminded jury that the defendant’s presence in or near the area where arson investigators say the fire originated on the day inferno began does not implicate him as the firestarter. Moreover, the defense’s short witness list betrays its intent to closely cross examine and potentially neutralize the prosecution’s witnesses as to the tightness and integrity of the evidence the investigators gathered, and subject to question the analysis done and conclusions reached by the investigators and the prosecution’s experts.
Halstenberg is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Andrew Peppler and Deputy District Attorney Justin Crocker. He is represented by Deputy Public Defender Justin Ewaniszyk and Deputy Public Defender Luke Byward.
The trial is to be held before Judge Cheryl Kersey, Previous pretrial motions were heard by Judge J. David Mazurek.
On March 27, Peppler submitted a list of 155 potential witnesses and exhibits. Witnesses identified included Detective Jacob Hernandez, Detective Lorraine Bertetto, Detective Blake Stebbing, Sergeant Michael Brandt, Deputy Roland Schmiedel, Deputy B. Robinson and Deputy Ryan Garcia, all with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department; Officer Matthew Kirkhart, Officer Matthew Franklin, Officer Andrew Arthen, Officer Jan Rybczynski, Officer Bennet Milloy and Officer Joshua William with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s San Bernardino office; Officer John May and Officer Joe Green with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Riverside office; Patrick Aguada, Monica Sanchez and Joel Franklin, who are financial specialists with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Service; and Karl Behrens, a financial specialist with the US Forest Service. Decisions as to which of these witness will be called during the trial are to be made by Peppler and Crocker as the trial progresses. Each witnessed called by Peppler and/or Crocker will be subject to cross examination by Ewaniszyk or Byward at Ewaniszyk’s and Byward’s discretion. Ewaniszyk and Byward are free to call anyone on the prosecution’s witness list if Peppler and/or Crocker do not call on them to testify.
Exhibits and evidence specified by Peppler and/or Crocker include a summary compiled by Jack Franklin of the costs associated with the efforts by the California Department of Foresty and Fire Protection, known by its acronym Cal Fire, to extinguish or otherwise control the Line Fire; a summary compiled by Pat Aguada of the costs associated with Cal Fire’s efforts to extinguish or otherwise control the Line Fire; federal financial records; the medical records related to Jose Luise Hernandez, who was apparently injured in the fire; the registration history of Halstenberg’s Chevrolet Silverado with the license plate number 8D1602; and Halstenberg’s DMV SoundEx file. SoundEx is a coded surname or last name index based on the way a surname sounds rather than the way it is spelled.
Further evidence likely to be produced at trial extends to the results gleaned from a Vigilant automated license plate reader operated by the sheriff’s department in Highland on September 5, 2024; the Cellebrite web history for Halstenberg’s phone; Cellebrite phone photos for Halstenberg’s cell phone; the call detail record for Halstenberg’s cell phone; the time coordination information on Halstenberg’s phone; information available through Halstenberg’s T-Mobile cell service account; Hawk Analytics’ analysis of the calls made on Halstenberg’s phone on September 5, 2024; maps, satellite views and/or street views of northeast Highland Avenue, Bacon Lane, Randall Lane, Baseline Avenue, the City of Highland, the area containing the San Manuel Casino in Highland, the San Manuel Village area, Frontera Del Norte, Plunge Creek, the roadway from Highland to Running Springs, Pinecone Drive and the area specifically around Panorama Road and Pinecone Drive; a street view of Panorama Road; a satellite view of Halstenberg’s home at 1394 Detroit Street in Norco; and a map of the total burned area as a result of the Line Fire.
Extrapolating on the evidence Peppler and Crocker have amassed, it appears the prosecutorial narrative is that geopositioning data relayed between Halstenberg’s cellphone, satellites and cell towers, together with security/surveillance camera footage and photos, irrefutably establish that Halstenberg had driven some 36 miles from his home in Norco to Highland and the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains on September 5, a sweltering day near the end of the hottest summer in Southern California in the last 130 years. Data and both analog- and digitally-time-stamped photos show Halstenberg at various locations around Highland, including Highland Avenue, Bacon Lane, Randall Lane, Baseline Avenue, Frontera Del Norte and Plunge Creek. While near Bacon Lane in Highland, Halstenberg made what Peppler and Crocker are prepared to demonstrate was Halstenberg’s first attempt to instigate an inferno, using coins he had wrapped in paper, which he set amidst vegetation that had been so desiccated by the relentless summer heat that it constituted kindling. The ensuing grass fire was immediately reported, and quickly responding firefighters doused the blaze.
Prosecutors are prepared to show that Halstenberg less than an hour later made a second arson attempt at a point not too far away, at a slightly more remote spot east of Bacon Lane. That fire, however, was seen by a passerby who reacted in time to stomp it out on his own before it spread. Once again, the prosecutors will allege Halstenberg used paper stapled around coins as an ignition device to start that fire.
The first two failed attempts clearly demonstrate Halstenberg’s intent and determination to begin a fire in circumstances and in a place where it would quickly spread and rage out of control, the prosecution is intent on alleging.
Prosecutors will then utilize satellite and cell phone and cell phone tower data to establish that Halstenberg drove to a field near Baseline Road and Alpin Street, where sometime around 5:50 p.m., he once again started a fire, which was not checked in time. That fire migrated north toward the foothills, defying efforts to contain it. A CalFire incident management team was activated on September 6, as the steep terrain of the area into which the fire was spreading created challenges.
Light rain on September 7 and 8 sporadically aided firefighters in their containment efforts, but the fire persisted and soon regenerated. With the escalation of the surrounding heat, the fire began to expand rapidly into the San Bernardino Mountains, spreading northward and upward against the dry vegetation-covered hillside in what was referred to as a chimney effect. This prompted evacuation orders for the communities of Running Springs and Arrowbear Lake, thereafter followed by evacuation orders to those in the communities of Angelus Oaks, Seven Oaks and all campgrounds and cabins in the area; Green Valley Lake north from Highway 18 along Green Valley Lake Road; the community of Forest Falls; and the community of Mountain Home Village. Those orders pertained to 11,400 structures under what was deemed to be immediate threat.
On Tuesday, September 10, as the Line Fire was galloping northward and upward through the forest, it overran and destroyed the Keller Peak Fire Lookout, erected in 1926 near Running Springs, the oldest of a handful of remaining original towers put in place by the U.S. Fire Service.
By September 19, the fire was threatening 56,100 structures, including 11,400 under evacuation orders and 44,700 under evacuation warnings.
For the next ten days, the fire defied containment. The California National Guard was deployed, including four UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, two C-130 aircraft and hand crews to suppress the fire. The fire persisted and toward the end of September it was not a raging set of blazes but rather innumerable persistent and widely dispersed hot spots. On September 29, a large flare up intensified the burning, and it progressed into the Bear Creek and Santa Ana river drainages. With Seven Oaks and Angeles Oaks lying in the fire’s eastward pathway, those communities were subjected to evacuation orders. A military police company was brought in to assist with the evacuations.
In the response to the Line Fire, over 7,000 firefighting and emergency personnel were deployed, including those from immediately adjacent jurisdictions, further away in California and some from Nevada and Arizona. The fire was not officially confirmed as 100 percent contained until December 23, 2024, at which point it had charred 43,978 acres, making it the fourth largest fire in San Bernardino County history in terms of geographical size, after 2003’s Old Fire, which burned 91,281 acres and destroyed 993 homes; the Grand Prix Fire, also from 2003, which burned 69,894 acres and destroyed 194 homes; and the Willow Fire in 1999, which burned 64,000 acres.
The Line fire was larger than the Bluecut Fire, which in 2016 burned 36,274 acres and destroyed 318 buildings; the Lake Fire, which in June 2015 burned 31,359 acres and wrecked four buildings; the Panorama Fire, which in 1980 burned 28,800 acres and destroyed 423 buildings and killed four; the El Dorado Fire which covered 22,744 acres, mostly in San Bernardino County in 2021; the 2016 Pilot Fire south of Hesperia that burned 8,110 acres; and the North Fire in July 2015, which burned 4,250 acres, destroyed 23 buildings and 74 vehicles.
The Santiago Canyon Fire of 1899 was a larger fire than the Line Fire, but did not take place primarily in San Bernardino County, cutting across multiple counties.
In a pretrial motion heard and rejected by Judge Mazurek on March 18, Ewaniszyk and Byward sought a change of venue for Halstenberg, claiming the defendant could not get a fair trial in any San Bernardino County Superior Court with regard to the 14 felony charges lodged against him, including aggravated arson, arson of an inhabited structure and arson causing great bodily injury.
Ewaniszyk and Byward are preparing to convince the jury that Halstenberg, a former U.S. Postal Service and FedEx employee who was employed at Stater Brothers Market at the time of his arrest, had traveled to Highland to go to the San Manuel Casino and that coins, paper and staples found in his vehicle are typical items and material that were present in hundreds of cars throughout California on September 5, making them irrelevant and meaningless evidence that cannot possibly implicate their client. It is anticipated that Ewaniszyk and Byward will maintain the prosecution is unfairly whipping up an hysterical hatred and suspicion against Halstenberg based on no more than his arrest and the accusations against him, which have tainted public opinion and the jury pool against him.
Moreover, Ewaniszyk and Byward are on a trajectory to assert, the investigation of Halstenberg was marred by an early conclusion, before all relevant evidence was gathered or examined, that the suspect was guilty, and efforts by so-called Brady officers to stack the deck against him.
This included the manipulation of the cellphone data gleaned from Halstenberg’s phone. Key to this theory is the action by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department employee Paul Bugar. Bugar, a nonsworn employee of the department who was previously a sworn peace officer who carried a badge and a weapon while employed with the Riverside Police Department, is employed with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in the capacity of a technician who gathers, refines, processes and files evidence. With regard to the Halstenberg matter, he processed Halstenberg’s cell phone data, cataloging that Halstenberg’s phone pinged off cell towers in Highland multiple times over the course of the afternoon and early evening of September 5, 2024.
Despite not working in the capacity of a sworn deputy with San Bernardino County, Bugar is labeled a “Brady officer” by multiple websites on the internet. A Brady officer is so referred to as a consequence of a ruling in the matter of Brady vs. Maryland, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors must disclose to the defense information about the past demonstrated lack of reliability of a sworn peace officer if that individual is to offer testimony in a criminal trial. A Brady officer is thus a police officer who has been found to be dishonest or has a sustained record of knowingly lying in an official capacity. These officers are placed on a Brady list, which prosecutors use to determine whether their credibility could be impeached at trial.
In Bugar’s case, during his previous employment with the Riverside Police Department, he was among four officers involved in the 1998 shooting death of 19-year-old Tyisha Miller.
Bugar and three other officers were summoned to a gas station in December 1998 in which a woman, later identified as Miller, was asleep inside a locked vehicle with the engine running, a .380 semi-automatic gun in her lap. The responding officers, who had approached the vehicle with their guns drawn, unsuccessfully attempted to awaken Miller. Thereupon, the officers broke the vehicle’s window, at which point Miller began to stir and may or may not have taken hold of the gun within her reach. The officers outside the vehicle, including Bugar, rained gunfire at her, consisting of 23 shots, 12 of which hit her, including four in the head, which killed her. Initial statements by the officers involved maintained that she had awakened and had the gun in hand. Subsequently, those statements were withdrawn or recanted, and the department’s investigators concluded she was likely unconscious at the time of the shooting and did not have the gun in her hand nor had raised it. Toxicological reports subsequently indicated Miller had been under the influence of the gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, a knock out drug known as GHB, at the time of her death.
All four officers were fired amid an atmosphere in which their detractors were demanding their termination and prosecution and their defenders were saying the shooting was justified.
In a motion in limine, San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson and Deputy District Attorney Pepller have asked the court to prevent Ewaniszyk and Byward from using Bugar’s cataloging as a Brady officer based upon his involvement in the Tyisha Miller case to discredit him as a witness in the Halstenberg case. “[T]he People move to prelude the defense from questioning Paul Bugar regarding prior conduct disclosed by the People pursuant to Brady v. Maryland,” the motion states. “The People further seek to preclude the defense from seeking to introduce any evidence regarding such prior conduct.” The motion stated that “the conduct [i.e., Bugar’s action in the Miller incident] is remote” from his current work in the sheriff’s department and is not relevant to the testimony he will provide against Halstenberg.
According to Ewaniszyk and Byward, the defense team has been overwhelmed by the more than 10,000 pages of discovery and 9,500 individual media files turned over by the prosecution as part of the discovery process in the case. The defense wants the court to require the prosecution to give a clearer indication of the case it is to pursue against Halstenberg by indicating which items they will actually introduce into evidence at trial. The defense’s witness and evidence lists are minute fractions of the material accrued by the prosecution, limited to Halstenberg, who may or may not take the witness stand; investigator Robert Williams; any potential witnesses identified by the prosecution or contained in the investigative reports; and any rebuttal or impeachment witnesses who emerge during the trial or become known to the defense before the trial concludes.
The prosecution has resisted defense efforts to have the experience, training and work history of the investigators who worked on the case delineated.