Nikkei arrested for allegedly stalking woman and setting cars on fire

Ontario, Calif. police arrested Matthew Masumi Toyotome, 27, of Riverside, Calif. on the morning of Jan. 13 for allegedly stalking a woman and torching her car, along with six other vehicles in the early morning hours that day. The fire was intended for a former friend of Toyotome, who turned down his romantic advances.

Ontario Police stated that the incident, which was captured on hotel video surveillance systems, showed the suspect dousing a car with gasoline and setting it aflame in the Folk Inn Ontario Airport parking lot. The flames spread to seven cars before it was extinguished, and caused several guests staying at the hotel and the adjacent Azure Hotel & Suites Ontario Airport located near the scene, to evacuate. Most of the guests, including the intended victim, were attending the Anime Los Angeles convention at the adjacent Ontario Convention Center. Police stated that neither building nor any people were harmed in the blaze.

Julia Moreno Jenkins posted a photo of her torched car on Instagram, writing, “for those who haven’t seen or heard yet, my car was set on fire while I was attending Anime Los Angeles. My car was specifically targeted and attacked by an obsessed stalker.”

Jenkins toOntario, Calif. police arrested Matthew Masumi Toyotome, 27, of Riverside, Calif. on the morning of Jan. 13 for allegedly stalking a woman and torching her car, along with six other vehicles in the early morning hours that day. The fire was intended for a former friend of Toyotome, who turned down his romantic advances.

Ontario Police stated that the incident, which was captured on hotel video surveillance systems, showed the suspect dousing a car with gasoline and setting it aflame in the Folk Inn Ontario Airport parking lot. The flames spread to seven cars before it was extinguished, and caused several guests staying at the hotel and the adjacent Azure Hotel & Suites Ontario Airport located near the scene, to evacuate. Most of the guests, including the intended victim, were attending the Anime Los Angeles convention at the adjacent Ontario Convention Center. Police stated that neither building nor any people were harmed in the blaze.

Julia Moreno Jenkins posted a photo of her torched car on Instagram, writing, “for those who haven’t seen or heard yet, my car was set on fire while I was attending Anime Los Angeles. My car was specifically targeted and attacked by an obsessed stalker.”
Jenkins told the Nichi Bei Weekly she and Toyotome had been a part of a cosplay group and filmed a YouTube Webseries together. Jenkins said Toyotome became “obsessed” with her and became “hostile” after she joined a separate filming group, leading to her cutting ties with him a little over a year ago.

“I had not heard of anything he was doing (since November of last year) until this past weekend when I saw him at the con and avoided him,” she said over a Facebook message. “And then learned he was the one who set my car on fire. My boyfriend … and I ID-ed him from the security footage from the hotel.”

Toyotome was arrested without incident at his Riverside home and jailed at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. He is held with bail set at $1,000,000.

Jenkins expressed her gratitude for the support fellow cosplayers have shown her since the incident and hope that Toyotome would be put away in jail for “a long time so I can feel some sense of safety.”

Tomo Hirai/Nichi Bei Weekly contributed to this report.