A 21-year-old deck seaman previously assigned to the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard in San Diego will stand trial beginning Monday in a military courtroom just 1,000 feet away from the pier where the $1.2 billion warship burned for more than four days in July 2020.

Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays faces life in prison if convicted of starting the fire that destroyed the ship more than two years ago. He is charged with aggravated arson and the willful hazarding of a vessel. He denies starting the blaze.

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Mays has elected for a bench trial, the Navy said Thursday, meaning it will be up to the military judge — Cmdr. Derek Butler — to render a verdict.

Gary Barthel, a San Diego-based attorney who previously represented Mays, said going with the judge instead of a jury of his peers is probably in Mays’ interest.

“I think the judge is going to look at this case and evaluate the evidence in a very impartial manner,” Barthel said.

Barthel, who plans to attend the trial at the Naval Base San Diego courthouse as an observer, said it might have been difficult to find impartial jurors in San Diego.

A spokesperson for Vice Adm. Michael Boyle, the commander of the Navy’s 3rd Fleet who ordered Mays to stand trial at court-martial, said the service is committed to the sailor receiving a fair and impartial proceeding.

“Everybody is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” said Cmdr. Sean Roberston, a 3rd Fleet spokesperson. “The Navy is committed to upholding that principle.”

The Bonhomme Richard fire was unmissable by anyone in the near vicinity — and for many people miles beyond — when it ignited during the first summer of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sailors saw smoke in the lower vehicle storage area just after 8 a.m. on Sunday, July 12, 2020, according to a Navy investigation into the fire. By 9 a.m., a thick, noxious black plume of smoke was billowing out of the ship’s hangar deck and blanketing San Diego and National City neighborhoods. The acrid stench of the ship’s contents burning was reported in several parts of the county.

The fire burned out of control for more than four days before finally being declared extinguished that Thursday afternoon. Every interior space on the ship from the waterline up burned; its aluminum island melted, causing the ship’s mast to collapse.

The Navy declared the ship a total loss by the end of the year. It was decommissioned and scrapped in 2021.

Navy prosecutors say it was Mays who started the blaze in the ship’s so-called “lower V.” The area, meant to store Marine Corps vehicles while at sea, had been converted into a general storage area. The ship was nearing the end of a two-year, $250 million upgrade to accommodate F-35B fighters. Sailors and contractors used the lower V to store materials and equipment, according to pretrial hearing testimony.

An arson investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified in December that a large box, called a “tri-wall,” was the source of the fire. Tri-walls are large, pallet-sized cardboard boxes used to store all manner of items aboard a ship named for their triple-thick cardboard construction. Several tri-walls were arranged in rows in the lower V that morning. The investigator testified that based on where the fire started and the lack of other possible ignition sources that an open flame applied to the tri-wall was what started the blaze.

One eyewitness — a petty officer on watch at the top of the ramp into the lower V — told investigators a masked sailor he identified as Mays walked down the ramp just before the blaze began.

Other deck department sailors from the ship told investigators Mays hated the Navy after washing out of the SEAL training school in Coronado and finding himself in the far less revered deck seaman role on the ship.

When Mays was arrested and taken into custody in August 2020, a Navy master-at-arms testified she heard Mays say to himself, “I’m guilty, I guess I did it,” when told he was going to the brig.

These witnesses testified at Mays’ preliminary Article 32 hearing in December. In the military justice system, a hearing officer presides over an Article 32 where prosecutors present evidence to support going to trial at a general court-martial. The hearing officer — in Mays’ case a Navy judge, Capt. Angela Tang — then writes a recommendation to a convening authority on whether to proceed with a trial.

Vice Adm. Steve Koehler was the 3rd Fleet commander and convening authority for the Bonhomme Richard arson at the time of Mays’ Article 32. He’s since moved on to a position with the Joint Staff in Washington, D.C.

Tang recommended against proceeding to trial after Mays’ Article 32, Barthel said. Both the Navy and Barthel declined to provide the Union-Tribune with a copy of Tang’s recommendation at the time, but Barthel said Tang’s recommendation against going to trial came over concerns that there wasn’t enough evidence to overcome reasonable doubt — the standard at court-martial.

However, in the military system, prosecutors only have to establish probable cause at an Article 32 to proceed to trial — a bar Tang said they’d met, according to Barthel. While military convening authorities, such as Koehler, often follow the recommendations of hearing officers, it is not unheard of for them to choose differently, Barthel said.

With just one eyewitness placing Mays at the scene of the alleged crime, Barthel said, the defense has a strong case. Searches of the young sailor’s electronic devices, vehicle and housing found no physical evidence tying him to the fire, he said.

Testimony at Mays’ December hearing and another preliminary hearing last month hinted at other defense strategies likely to play out at trial.

Mays’ defense team, three active-duty military judge advocates led by Lt. Cmdr. Jordi Torres, indicated in August that part of their strategy will be to introduce an alternative suspect. Another Bonhomme Richard sailor, who has since left the Navy, was investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service but eliminated as a suspect as agents zeroed in on Mays.

Several evidentiary motions were outstanding heading into the weekend before the trial, including a prosecution motion to prevent the defense from introducing evidence of graffiti found in a portable restroom near the burned-out ship claiming responsibility for the fire.

The graffiti appeared while Mays was in the brig, defense attorneys said in court, meaning Mays could not have written it.

Another sailor told NCIS she saw the second suspect running up the ramp from the lower V the morning of the fire, Barthel said. However, prosecutors contend that this second suspect was seen on surveillance video leaving the front gate of the base when the fire started.

The judge ruled in August that the defense will be allowed to introduce this second suspect at trial. Prosecutors told the judge that the government lost track of the man after he separated from the Navy and his whereabouts are currently unknown.

Mays’ trial is scheduled to last two weeks.

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