Four years after deadly Alpine fire, criminal trial still pending

It’s been four years since the deadliest residential fire in Las Vegas history, but a criminal trial for the former owner of the Alpine Motel Apartments won’t happen until early 2025.

Adolfo Orozco faces six counts of involuntary manslaughter and 21 counts of disregarding the safety of a person resulting in death or substantial bodily harm in connection with the Dec. 21, 2019, fire that left six dead, 13 injured and dozens without shelter.

The criminal case resumed in 2023 after nearly two years of delays over courtroom proceedings, but there remains no indication that the case will resolve before the scheduled trial in February 2025.

“We intend to go to trial,” defense attorney Dominic Gentile said Wednesday.

Orozco, who is also identified in court documents as Adolfo Orozco-Garcia, was the owner and operator of the Alpine Motel Apartments when the blaze tore through the building. Prosecutors have accused Orozco of acting like a “slumlord” by failing to properly maintain the building and ignoring issues with the fire alarm system and bolted back door, which prevented residents from escaping during the fire.

Shortly after the blaze, the Las Vegas Review-Journal obtained records showing that inspectors found 42 fire code violations in the building, including the locked door, missing or defective smoke detectors, and a lack of a functioning sprinkler system. At the time of the fire, it had been almost three years since the building had undergone a city fire inspection.

Dozens of plaintiffs also reached a confidential settlement this year in a civil suit over the fire.

The criminal case was delayed for more than two years largely because of the prosecution of property manager Malinda Mier, who had been accused of failing to fix the blocked back door. An investigator working for Orozco’s defense team refused to testify during a preliminary hearing in 2020, and the case was put on hold until a Supreme Court ruling in December 2022 that affirmed a judge’s decision to hold the investigator in contempt of court.

The investigator testified when the preliminary hearing resumed in early 2023. But at the conclusion of the hearing, Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman dismissed all of the charges Mier faced.

Orozco has pleaded not guilty in District Court, and his defense attorney has maintained that there is no legal standing for prosecutors to pursue a homicide charge.

In November, District Judge Jacqueline Bluth denied Orozco’s petition to dismiss the manslaughter charges, ruling that an involuntary manslaughter charge can be based on a “failure to act.”

A status check in the case is scheduled for May 21, and the jury trial is set to start on Feb. 10, 2025.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.