A defense attorney for the owner of a Clinton Township warehouse that exploded in 2024 sought Monday to get more information from an IT contractor who provided inventory control-related services and for cameras operating on the premises.

Last March, a fire and series of explosions at a vape supply facility on 15 Mile Road, home to Select Distributors and the Goo Smoke Shop, threw debris as far as 2 miles away, killing Turner Lee Salter. Noor Kestou of Commerce Township, who owned the warehouse, faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with Salter’s death.

At a show cause hearing for Kestou’s case Monday morning in Clinton Township’s 41B District Court, James C. Thomas, his attorney, said he subpoenaed Birmingham-based attorney Eric Pernie but didn’t receive some items. Pernie has previously represented an IT contractor for Select Distributors, Leith Abusenenh.

Chief Judge Sebastian Lucido ordered Pernie to turn over any contact information he has for Abusenenh.

He said Thomas and the other defense attorneys could then subpoena Abusenenh if they wanted to.

Under his contract with Kestou, Abusenenh had to provide services relating to the cloud for inventory control and for the cameras operating on the premises at the time of the fire.

Thomas said that after the explosion, the access to the inventory control and the cameras was taken over by Abusenenh. Thomas said he hasn’t been able to obtain either “the inventory control or the access to the cameras — whatever would have been recorded on the cloud.” After a subpoena was served, Thomas and his colleagues received about 700 pages of inventory control.

Thomas said Abusenenh retained Pernie as a lawyer in order to collect a balance from Kestou.

Thomas said he suspects that Pernie had in his file a “notice to preserve” for inventory control and the cameras, but he didn’t receive that in the subpoena. Thomas added that he didn’t receive any correspondence between Pernie and a police department or any of the other items that were listed in the attachment to his subpoena. He told Lucido that he wanted to hear from Pernie “what it is that he has to say relating to those items.”

In response, Pernie said he had forwarded to the defense attorneys what “he had in his possession.”

“That’s what I have. I’m the wrong party. Leith is the person they need to subpoena and get the information from,” he said, referring to Abusenenh.

Thomas said he believes Abusenenh has left the state, and Pernie said he doesn’t know where Abusenenh is.

“I’m busy,” Pernie said to Lucido,” you’re busy, they’re busy. To show cause me, when I clearly, in an email, told them, ‘that’s it; that’s all I have’ — sitting here on court right now is an abuse of the court, and I want to make sure I give them what they need.”

Thomas and Pernie both declined to be interviewed. Peter Torrice, another attorney representing Kestou, also was unavailable for comment.

Dawn Fraylick, a spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office, said the office does not have any information regarding the contract or contractor discussed on Monday.

The current deadline for discovery — or the date by which a prosecutor’s office has to turn over any information it has — is April 1 in the Kestou case. Carmen DeFranco, an assistant prosecuting attorney, said the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office is waiting to receive a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Kestou faces a preliminary exam on May 22.