Attorneys argue over alarm during Alpine Motel fire court hearing

Less than a month before the deadliest residential fire in Las Vegas history, someone triggered the fire alarm at the Alpine Motel, prosecutors and defense attorneys said Wednesday.

It was 1:48 a.m. on Nov. 28, and when a guard came to investigate, the alarm was no longer blaring, but the levers at the pull stations on all three floors had been pulled.

The alarm company could not reach the building’s owner, Adolfo Orozco, at the time, EDS Electronics Operations Manager Erin Stevens testified in a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon in Las Vegas Justice Court.

After the preliminary hearing, which is expected to go until September, Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman will decide whether there is enough evidence for Orozco and property manager Malinda Mier to stand trial.

Orozco and Mier were charged on July 30 with manslaughter — one count for each of the six victims — and 15 counts of performance of an act or neglect of duty in disregard of safety resulting in substantial bodily harm or death.

Orozco also faces four counts of preventing or dissuading a witness or victim from reporting a crime with the use of a deadly weapon.

The Dec. 21 fire at the Alpine Motel on 213 N. Ninth St., a 41-unit building constructed in 1972 in downtown Las Vegas, left six people dead, 13 more injured and dozens displaced the week before Christmas.

Both defendants are out of custody after posting bail.

Last week, Zimmerman saw graphic testimony and evidence from the Alpine fire, while Mier at times became emotional.

The second day zeroed in on testimony from Scott Thompson, a Las Vegas fire inspector who had prepared a fire code violation report for the multiagency investigation into the blaze.

In court Wednesday, attorneys talked to Stevens about the alarm system’s “trouble signal” issued on Nov. 28 — which could refer to a variety of issues.

Only after the fire, Stevens testified, did EDS realize that buttons had been pressed that had incapacitated the alarm system.

In court Wednesday, defense attorney Mark Dzarnoski argued that even though the incorrect phone information for Orozco was on file, EDS Electronics should have notified Orozco via email — which he had been responsive to in the past — about the false alarm on Nov. 28.

He said the alarm company should have known the system was inactive, because “if it was functioning, and when the guard got there and the handles were pulled, the alarms would have been wailing.”

“If a licensed and certified EDS technician had gone to the building, opened the panel and seen the depressed buttons, the technician would have immediately known that the system had been taken offline,” he said.

Prosecutor John Giordani countered that EDS’ protocol when there is a general trouble signal is to contact the number on the emergency contact list.

“And whose responsibility is it to keep that contact list updated?” Giordani asked Stevens during the hearing.

“That would be an owner or owner’s representative,” Stevens replied.

The hearing is set to continue on Monday.

This story has been updated to correct the name of the court.

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @ByBrianaE on Twitter.