Accusations Fly After Leak of Deal in Club Fire Case

A plea deal by the owners of the nightclub where 100 music fans died in a 2003 fire has roiled this small state, pitting the attorney general against the judge overseeing the case, and leaving friends and relatives of the victims stunned and angry.

“It is like they got off scot-free,” 20-year-old Jackie McKenna said as she sat numbly at a homemade memorial to her best friend’s father, Jason Moran. “For their actions that night, my friend Ashley doesn’t have a dad anymore.”

Station nightclub co-owners Michael and Jeffrey Derderian had entered not guilty pleas. More than 500 potential jurors were called for duty, and Michael Derderian’s trial had been scheduled to begin early next month. Jeffrey Derderian’s trial was to have followed.

But under the plea agreement, each will plead no contest to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Michael Derderian, 45, will serve four years of a 15-year prison term, with the remaining time suspended. Jeffrey Derderian, 39, received a 10-year suspended sentence and must perform 500 hours of community service. The brothers also will be placed on three years’ probation.

Victims’ families were to receive letters informing them of the agreement before it was announced, Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. said Thursday. Instead, many relatives turned on the evening news Wednesday to learn that the Derderians would not face criminal trials in the worst fire in Rhode Island history and fourth-deadliest nightclub blaze in the U.S.

“I saw it on TV,” said Charles Sweet, who lost his son Shawn, 28, in the blaze that swept the small wooden roadhouse soon after the band Great White took to the stage on Feb. 20, 2003. Shawn’s girlfriend, Laura Paterno-Gillett, also perished. “I wasn’t told a word in advance.”

Sweet, who visits his son’s grave daily, said he could not believe what he heard. “These guys are getting away with what I call murder,” he said. “A hundred dead? People get long sentences for much less than that. I mean, this is a holocaust.”

At the Kent County courthouse -- a mile from where The Station club was leveled in less than four minutes after sparks from the band’s pyrotechnic display ignited cheap foam insulation -- Darigan summoned reporters Thursday to an unusual session in which he blasted an “anonymous source within the attorney general’s office” for leaking terms of the deal.

Speaking from the bench, Darigan called the action “unethical, reprehensible [and] devoid of any consideration for the victims of this tragedy.” In addition, Darigan said the premature release of the terms of the settlement “totally abrogated an agreement reached after weeks of discussion between the parties in this case.”

A letter detailing the agreement was faxed anonymously late Wednesday to a Providence television station as well as the Providence Journal, the state’s largest newspaper. Darigan said Thursday that the letter “unquestionably came from within the attorney general’s office.”

But Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch made personal phone calls to numerous victims’ families late Wednesday to say he had been unaware of the pending plea bargain.

“He said, ‘It wasn’t me,’ ” Sweet said Lynch told him in a phone conversation. “He said he was totally against the deal. He said it was the judge who did it.”

Darigan firmly rebuffed the notion that state officials had not taken part in the settlement.

“The court can ensure you that this is not the fact at all in this case,” Darigan said. The judge said representatives from the attorney general’s office and lawyers for the defendants engaged in negotiations for weeks.

In the letter mailed Wednesday to victims’ families, Darigan said he reached the plea agreement with the attorney general’s office and defense counsel after “months of pretrial preparation and discussion.” Darigan said the plea agreement helped avoid “an extremely lengthy, costly and heart-rending trial whose outcome was uncertain.”

Darigan also took responsibility in the letter for accepting the agreement, explaining that he was exercising his “authority and prerogative” as a Superior Court judge with 24 years of experience. He acknowledged that “despite the efforts on the part of all concerned, the prosecution and defense were unable to agree on the terms of a sentence satisfactory to each.” He said the attorney general retained the right to object to the plea.

The Derderians will be formally sentenced Sept. 29.

Lynch, who is running for reelection, has come under sharp criticism for the way The Station nightclub proceedings have unfolded. Only the band’s manager, Daniel M. Biechele, has pleaded guilty, a move that also allowed him to avoid trial. In exchange for pleading guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, Biechele was sentenced to 10 years in prison; all but four were suspended.

Many family members faulted Lynch for not pursuing charges against fire inspectors and other local authorities who approved the club’s fire safety system. In addition to the highly flammable foam wall coverings, the club had poorly marked exits. On the night of the fatal fire, the club apparently was crowded well beyond its legal capacity.

In a statement Thursday, Lynch said he opposed the plea agreement and had intended to prosecute the Derderians. “I do not agree with this disposition,” he said in the statement. “It disappoints me very much.”

Sarah Mancini said she came home from work late Wednesday to find a recorded phone message from the attorney general “just wanting to see how I was doing” after learning that the Derderians would not face trial. Mancini’s son Keith, 34, was among the victims.

“To tell you the truth, I am still kind of in shock,” she said Thursday. “The way it was done, whoever leaked it to the press before the families got a chance to hear it for themselves -- well, that was just wrong.”

Mancini said the club owners got off with light sentences. But she noted: “You could give these guys a million years, or you could give them a half an hour. Nothing would satisfy everybody. And they have to live with this for the rest of their lives. I can’t think of a worse sentence than that.”

Besides, she said, disposing of the Derderians’ criminal charges will clear the way for victims’ families to proceed with civil suits.

Like others who lost loved ones in the fire, Mancini wants to raise enough money to buy the land where the club stood and erect a memorial.

elizabeth.mehren@latimes.com