Ashley Furniture letter to HACM hints at a suspected cause of Casanova fire.

In the months following the three-alarm inferno that devastated the Casanova Plaza apartment complex in Monterey on Monday, March 9, those displaced from the building have been trying to get back into the vacant complex to retrieve their possessions.

To help them, roughly 50 former residents have retained Monterey-based attorney John Coniglio, who sent a letter in May to the building owner, the Housing Authority of the County of Monterey, formally demanding that residents’ personal property and other physical evidence related to the incident be preserved.

“We want to get some of these people reunited with their stuff because we are dealing with people that don’t have a lot,” Coniglio says. “This is all they may have in the world, cherished heirlooms and family memories, so we’re just trying to help them as much as we can.”

Coniglio says that he and his co-counsel Stuart Chandler, a Fresno-based attorney with experience with mass actions and fire cases, have been in discussions with HACM’s legal counsel to allow the safe return of the items, where possible.

“There are safety concerns both for the residents and that the belongings themselves might have some level of contamination,” Coniglio says.

He adds that HACM’s legal counsel has been “above board” throughout the talks and that there has been a “spirit of cooperation.”

However, a formal request from a furniture company that hints at a suspected cause of the fire may complicate matters for people seeking a way to claim their personal property.

Public records obtained by the Weekly show that HACM received a demand from Brad J. Vornholt, an attorney with Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, representing Wisconsin-based Ashley Furniture, on May 19.

“Please do not commence repairs or demolition to any parts of the building(s) or remove any damaged personal property from the building(s) without allowing my client the opportunity to investigate and document the scene,” the letter reads. “The scene contains evidence that is vital to the defense of potential claims arising out of the fire.”

According to an inconclusive investigation conducted by Monterey Fire Department Division Chief Justin Cooper, the living room of apartment 311, the likely origin of the blaze, contained an electric, motorized recliner. In the report, Cooper states that the fire likely began in the living room.

The fire sent eight residents to the hospital and led to one death.