Suspect Is Indicted in Cartoon Cel Sales : Artworks: Warner Bros. reported the images of Bugs Bunny and other characters, imprinted on acetate, stolen in 1988.

A Studio City man has been indicted for allegedly selling cartoon cels of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others that were reported stolen from Warner Bros. and ended up in the hands of dealers across the country, authorities said Wednesday.

Billy W. Carmen, 31, faces three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property and could face a maximum of 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted, according to a federal indictment handed down in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Melinda Haag said Carmen allegedly sold cartoon cels that had come from a cache of “tens of thousands” of cels worth more than $1 million that disappeared from a Warner Bros. storage office in Burbank in 1988.

Most of the cels were never recovered but Burbank police and federal investigators found several in the hands of dealers in New York, Virginia and Los Angeles, Haag said.

“We asked them where they got them and they said Mr. Carmen,” Haag said.

Carmen is well-known among Los Angeles animated art collectors and dealers through his Toluca Lake company, Anima’Zing Source. He denied stealing the cels Wednesday, saying that he found them in a trash dumpster outside the office building where Warner Bros. stored them.

Carmen declined further comment and his attorney, John D. Vandevelde, refused to discuss the specific charges because he had not seen the indictment.

“Mr. Carmen has been in this business a long time and has not had problems of this sort before,” Vandevelde said. “He will vigorously defend himself.”

Federal authorities said the wide scope of the theft investigation and indictment of Carmen is believed to be a first in the field of tracking stolen cartoon cels.

For much of the 80-year history of animation, the one-dimensional, brightly colored images on acetate were largely considered valueless. But increasing numbers of collectors of animated art have created a market for cels--so-called because in the early days of animation they were made on celluloid.

Haag declined to discuss how Carmen allegedly came into possession of the stolen cels he passed to dealers. She said that in 1988 he operated a business called the Toluca Lake Chocolate Factory in the same building where Warner Bros. had its storage facility.

Carmen moved his business out of the building in April, 1988, about the same time that Warner Bros. officials discovered that thousands of cels were missing from storage boxes, Haag said. Warner officials checked their inventory after Burbank police received an anonymous letter about the thefts.

On Feb. 24 1989, investigators searched the homes of Carmen and an associate and seized more than 1,000 Warner Bros. cels--featuring such characters as Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck.

Under Tuesday’s indictment, Carmen remains free but must appear for arraignment in federal court on Oct. 1, Haag said.

In 1989, Carmen and his attorney told The Times he was being investigated because the increased value and interest in animation cels was making producers of the artwork second-guess past decisions not to keep them.

In an interview, Carmen said: “It’s really strange how they want to start screaming something’s stolen. If digging something out of a garbage dumpster is stealing, then, hell, I’m guilty.”