RAMONA – The owner of a Ramona house where a man died in an explosion and fire Oct. 31 was found to have committed fraud two years ago for using fake tax returns to sell a gas station he owned in Nebraska.

James A. Kurtenbach, 47, owes $16,600 in back taxes on the Ramona house, which was destroyed in the fire, according to the county Treasurer-Tax Collector's Office, and $40,000 on a gas station he owns in Ramona.

Court records indicate Kurtenbach pays $10,000 a month in alimony and child support to his former wife, Theresa, with money from the Ramona gas station, which they purchased several years ago.

In September 2006, according to property records, Kurtenbach purchased a 6,500-square-foot six-bathroom home on five acres in Poway for $2.5 million.

Ramona resident Joseph Nesheiwat, 24, who died in at the Ramona house, had worked at the Kurtenbach's Stars Petroleum gas station in Ramona for seven years, his mother said.

Kurtenbach couldn't be reached for comment for this story. An employee of the gas station said last week that Nesheiwat was “like a son” to Kurtenbach.

Authorities have concluded that the explosion at the Ramona house was the result of arson, and that Nesheiwat was likely involved. “What role he played, I really can't say at this time,” said Lt. Dennis Brugos, a sheriff's homicide investigator.

No one has been arrested or charged, but Brugos said “progress is being made in the case.”

About 1:30 a.m. Oct. 31, neighbors were awakened by a loud explosion at the house Kurtenbach owns near the fifth hole of Mt. Woodson Golf Club in Ramona. A neighbor said he saw a man stumble outside and collapse in the back yard. The man was later identified as Nesheiwat.

The Medical Examiner's Office determined his death was an accident, caused by second- and third-degree burns and inhalation of products of combustion.

In an interview the day of the fire, Kurtenbach said authorities asked him about propane. Kurtenbach said he had smelled it a week earlier, but not when he returned Oct. 29. The house, which has an assessed value of $933,000, was supposed to be vacant and awaiting new tenants, Kurtenbach said.

Kurtenbach once owned a gas station in Omaha also called Stars Petroleum. In August 2006, a jury found that Kurtenbach had used doctored tax returns – showing far more income from the station than it was actually receiving – when he sold it to Robert Brau, an Omaha businessman, in 2000. The jury ordered Kurtenbach to pay $619,000.

Brau told the Omaha World-Herald that he paid $1.4 million for the business, and was cleaning a storage room when he found the station's actual 1998 tax return stuffed between some pipes and a wall. “I knew we had been taken,” Brau said.

In an interview, Matt Heffron, Brau's attorney, said an appeals court affirmed the jury's finding of fraud, and another jury will determine the damages.

According to San Diego County tax records, one federal and two state tax liens have been filed against Kurtenbach and his former wife over the past several years. All have been paid. In July, they paid more than $268,000 to be released from a federal tax lien against the gas station.

Their divorce was final last year after more than 25 years of marriage.

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