Issue date: January 26, 2000
By ANNE H. KIM
A prolific real estate investor, who also ran a pet-supply business and a karate school, is set to be sentenced February 18 for the 1998 torching of a home of a prominent Los Altos Hills attorney, who had been representing the arsonist's wife in a divorce case.
Greg McCarthy, 53, who lived on what some describe as a "palatial" three-story mansion with vineyards and a guest house on Arastradero Road, adjacent to Portola Valley, has been in custody without bail since his arrest on New Year's Eve in 1998. He was convicted on January 5 of this year and faces up to 17 years in prison.
Richard Mazer, Mr. McCarthy's attorney, was out of the country at press time and could not be reached for comment.
Mr. McCarthy set fire to Jim and Kathy Danaher's Los Altos Hills home after threatening Mr. Danaher, according to Tom Farris, deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County. The Danahers had been on vacation at the time of the fire in January 1998.
He was also convicted January 5 on two counts of insurance fraud related to a 1995 fire of a Mountain View karate school he owned, but failed to make mortgage payments on.
The fire in 1998 started in a crawl space under the Danaher's multi-level house and burned for some time before it was detected, Mr. Farris said.
Firefighters digging through the rubble found a household timing device, an extension cord, a plastic gasoline can, a cloth wick and evidence that gasoline was strewn around, Mr. Farris said.
Prosecutors were unable to charge Mr. McCarthy with arson for the 1995 fire of the karate school because the statute of limitations had expired. But Mr. Farris said they were able to prove Mr. McCarthy caused that fire.
Besides being a real estate investor, Mr. McCarthy ran a pet-supply business and dabbled in manufacturing pet products -- a business he sold to Warner Lambert, said Mr. Farris.
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