Digital Extra: The Station Fire

03:49 PM EDT on Thursday, April 7, 2005

By TRACY BRETON
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- Lawyers for the three defendants in The Station nightclub criminal case today complained that state prosecutors have not sufficiently apprised them of the basis for the involuntary-manslaughter charges brought against the men.

They said that unless the state specifies what "acts or omissions'' were committed by Station owners Jeffrey and Michael Derderian and Daniel Biechele, the former tour manager for the band Great White, who set off the pyrotechnics that ignited the blaze, they would move to dismiss the charges.

The defense lawyers asked Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. to compel the state to provide more specific information about the prosecution's case.

Defense lawyer Kathleen Hagerty said it is "critical'' for defense lawyers to know exactly what the defendants are alleged to have done that caused the deaths of 100 people in the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at the West Warwick club.

"The state has thrown in every conceivable act of negligence they can think of in this case,'' said Biechele's lawyer, Thomas Briody. It is "impossible,'' he said, "to parse out exactly what the state's theories are.''

But Darigan denied the defense motion to compel the state to provide more information about the factual basis for the charges.

The judge said he's convinced that prosecutors have done everything they "should be expected to do'' to inform the defendants of the basis for the case. He noted that the evidence turned over includes not just paper documents but information stored on CDs and Excel spreadsheets.

Prosecutor William Ferland said during the hearing that the attorney general's office has given the defendants "above and beyond what we're required to provide,'' including 135 grand jury tapes with a detailed index of who testified and where their testimony can be found; "three separate deliveries of documentary evidence"; copies of all photographs and video in the possession of the state in a searachable database as well as a tour of the evidence prosecutors are storing for presentation at the trial.

There's nothing complicated about the state's theory of the case, Ferland argued. "Your client,'' he told Briody, "unlawfully set off fireworks in a tiny nightclub. Those fireworks set off a fire and 100 people died.''

As for the Derderians, he contended, they "owned and operated this nightclub in a criminally negligent manner.''

The state, he said, has already provided a list of the specific alleged acts of negligence committed by the brothers -- including permitting overcrowding at their club and their installation of highly flammable polyurethane foam as soundproofing on the walls and ceiling of The Station.

The Derderian brothers were in the courtroom today but did not participate in the hearing. They left with their lawyer after the hearing.

The Derderians and Biechele each face 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter in the case. All three have pleaded not guilty.

The defendants stand indicted under two theories of involuntary manslaughter: misdemeanor manslaughter and criminal negligence.

Hagerty said that the defendants will each ask for separate trials. The judge said the case won't be tried until sometime next year.