MORGAN HILL — A man has been charged with deliberately setting 10 fires over the past month in what authorities are calling an arson spree inflicting damage that spanned Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
According to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and court records, 32-year-old Daniel Hilario Catano was charged with 10 counts of arson and five other criminal counts of prowling, burglary, possessing stolen property, having an illegal weapon, and resisting arrest.
The resisting charge is likely connected to his reported evasion of police officers chasing him before he was eventually taken into custody Tuesday. The maximum penalty for the charges as currently filed is 29 years in prison.
Catano was booked into the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas and was initially held in lieu of $1.025 million bail, according to jail records. The criminal complaint lists him as a San Jose resident, but at his arraignment Thursday prosecutors said he hailed primarily from Visalia in Tulare County.
“It’s sheer luck that one or more of these fires did not turn into a major wildfire,” Supervising Deputy District Attorney Michel Amaral said after the arraignment.
Catano appeared Thursday in a Morgan Hill courtroom; he did not enter a plea and was ordered to return to court Aug. 28. During the hearing, the public defender’s office requested that Catano be freed on supervised release, saying that the fires that he is accused of setting only involved unoccupied areas and properties.
Deputy District Attorney Joel Gorman objected to the request and asked Judge Roberta Hayashi to revoke Catano’s bail altogether, arguing that the wildfire and injury risk posed by his alleged acts was immense. Ultimately, the judge sided with Gorman, noting the severity of the charges and the fact Catano was on probation and out on bail for a 2022 assault arrest in Tulare County when the fires were set.
Hayashi said the “potential harm to the public” of setting fires — during summer weather and in an area known for wildfire risks — led her to decide that Catano could not be safely released while his court case is adjudicated.
According to prosecutors and police investigators from Gilroy and Morgan Hill, the first intentional fire linked to Catano was set June 28 at a condominium construction site, the Depot-Latala mixed-use project on Depot Street in Morgan Hill.
That was followed by the biggest cluster of seven fires reported July 6 in Gilroy, which torched several residential fences, a car near an auto-body shop, multiple dumpsters and some brush near a motel. Catano is charged with burglarizing a car and prowling near a home amid the fires.
After the July 6 fires, Gilroy police released a public bulletin showing surveillance images of a possible suspect, which led to at least one tip that pointed investigators toward Catano, police said.
The search for him intensified Monday, when a fire was reported around 8:15 a.m. at the ampm minimart store at 18605 Monterey Highway, the road that provided a geographical backbone for the fires now charged against Catano.
Three and a half hours after the minimart fire, an employee at the Anritsu Company called police to report that someone had been trying to get into their building, and resembled the person in the Gilroy police bulletin. When confronted by an employee, police said the intruder ran into a parking lot and started breaking into vehicles, and reportedly stole items including a pair of AirPods.
Police say they encountered Catano about an hour later and stopped and searched him, recovering a knife and stolen property, before he ran away and evaded capture. That night, around 8 p.m., a man now believed to be Catano was seen running from the scene of a vegetation fire at Hale Avenue and Llagas Road, but he again escaped a manhunt that grew to involve the San Jose Police Department’s helicopter, a pair of Santa Clara County Sheriff K9 units and Campbell Police Department drone operators.
But Tuesday morning, authorities say an an off-duty Piedmont Police Department captain on his way to work received a call from a resident who directed him to the suspect’s location. The captain detained Catano until sheriff’s deputies and officers arrived at the scene.
The 10 arson charges are four less than the number of arson counts alleged against Catano at jail booking, but the case remains under investigation. Police also contend that a series of at least 10 arson fires preceded the timespan of the current criminal charges, and that Catano reportedly confessed to setting at least 15 fires during his post-arrest interviews.
Amaral said Thursday that “the investigation is in its infancy” and that the number of charges could change given the amount of tips and evidence that authorities have to run down.
“I believe it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Amaral said.
Staff writer Jason Green contributed to this report.
Source: www.mercurynews.com