N.Y. Jury Finds Cuba Native Guilty in Fire That Killed 87

A jury convicted a Cuban immigrant of murder Monday for setting a fire that killed 87 people at the illegal Happy Land social club.

Relatives of the victims wept as the jury foreman repeated the word “guilty” 176 times, covering two counts of murder for each victim plus charges of arson and assault.

Julio Gonzalez, 37, started the blaze on March 25, 1990, by igniting a dollar’s worth of gasoline at the club’s only exit after a fight with a former girlfriend. She worked at the club as a coat-checker and was one of six survivors.

Since Gonzalez’s lawyer admitted that his client set the fire, the key issue for jurors was whether he was sane at the time.

Judge Burton Roberts set sentencing for Sept. 19. Gonzalez faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison because all of the deaths stemmed from the same act.

The verdicts came on the jury’s fourth day of deliberation and a few hours after jurors asked the judge to have his explanation of the insanity defense read back to them.

“He wasn’t insane,” said Milka Rios, 12, a relative of one of the victims. “He knew every step he did; he knew how he did it.”

Aracelis Perez, who lost a daughter in the blaze, cried while chanting: “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” after the verdicts were read.

Defense lawyer Richard Berne had argued that his client was insane that night and not responsible for his actions.

But in a videotaped confession to police that was shown to the jury, Gonzalez said: “I knew that I was going to do damage but not of that intensity.”

Months later, Gonzalez told psychologists that a voice ordered him to set the blaze.

The Happy Land social club had been ordered closed in 1988 because of safety violations, including the lack of a second exit. But the order was never enforced, and it reopened illegally in 1990.

Gonzalez was charged with two counts of murder for each person killed, one for felony murder in the commission of another felony, the arson, and one for depraved indifference to human life. Prosecutors often file both charges since they are separate crimes under New York state law.

The prosecutor insisted that one relative testify for each victim, and so many broke down on the stand that the judge had to admonish them not to cry while testifying.

Gonzalez came to the United States in 1981 from his native Cuba in the Mariel boatlift. He had served three years in military prison for abandoning his post.