The bookkeeper for a Kearny Mesa auto parts business that burned down in 2019 was convicted Monday of setting the business ablaze to cover up that more than $740,000 went missing under her watch.
Carey Alice Hernandez, 46, was found guilty by a San Diego federal jury of setting fire to Off Road Warehouse on March 28, 2019 — its second in just four months.
No one was injured.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement that as the Balboa Avenue business went up in flames, surveillance footage captured an SUV with dark wheel rims near the scene of the fire.
The same SUV was spotted on surveillance footage near Hernandez’s home in Point Loma, prosecutors said.
One day after the fire, prosecutors say Hernandez sent “misleading texts” to co-workers in order to convince them her SUV’s wheel rims were light rather than dark and similarly lied about them to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that after Off Road Warehouse’s owner decided to sell the business in late 2018, the purchaser conducted an audit that revealed $744,621 went missing during Hernandez’s time as bookkeeper and controller in charge of the company books and records.
Hernandez was convicted Monday of malicious destruction of building by means of fire, witness tampering, and making false statements. Her sentencing is scheduled for July.
City News Service contributed to this report.
