Next month, it will be four years since fireworks at the start of a Great White concert turned The Station nightclub into a deadly inferno, killing 100 people and seriously injuring scores of others. Civil litigation resulting from the tragedy is still wending through the courts.
But at last, in 2006, the prosecution of the three men deemed to be responsible for the fire – club owners Jeffrey and Michael Derderian and Great White tour manager Daniel Biechele, each of whom faced two sets of 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter – came to an end.
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Biechele pleaded guilty in February to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, and in May, he was sentenced to four years in prison and three years’ probation.
The Derderian brothers, meanwhile, were poised to be tried in R.I. Superior Court in September, made a plea deal at the last minute, and over the objections of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and many fire survivors and victims’ families, Michael Derderian got the same sentence as Biechele, while Jeffrey Derderian got a suspended sentence, avoiding prison.
Upset that the plea deal would keep information of public interest from being disclosed, Lynch has since released many documents gathered during the investigation, and he recently won the court’s permission to go further and disclose grand jury testimony as well.
— Marion Davis
