Authorities in California say a warehouse employee who was accused of starting a major fire later compared himself with Luigi Mangione in a message sent to coworkers.
According to a Friday press conference reported by the Los Angeles Times, the worker, Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, was charged with several felony and state arson counts after a fire destroyed the Kimberly-Clark paper products warehouse in Ontario, California.
The warehouse is located about an hour outside Los Angeles. Officials said the blaze caused extensive damage and destroyed property worth nearly $600m.
The allegation adds a striking detail to a case already marked by heavy losses. Investigators say Abdulkarim sent the message after the fire, drawing a comparison between himself and Luigi Mangione.
No further details about the message were included in the source material, and the circumstances leading up to the fire were not laid out in the brief report. The charges, however, indicate that prosecutors are treating the case as both a felony matter and a state arson case.
The destroyed warehouse belonged to Kimberly-Clark, the paper products company. Ontario, where the fire occurred, sits in Southern California and has long been an important industrial and logistics hub because of its location inland from Los Angeles.
The case is likely to draw continued attention because of the scale of the damage and the unusual comparison reported by authorities. For now, Abdulkarim remains identified in the source report as the employee charged in connection with the blaze.
Officials have not provided additional information in the source report about a motive, a court appearance, or whether the case has moved beyond the initial charges announced Friday.
The Los Angeles Times reported the details from the press conference as authorities publicly outlined the allegations against Abdulkarim following the warehouse fire.
