Digital Extra: The Station Fire

Former Great White tour manager Daniel M. Biechele will provide the prosecution in the deadly Station nightclub fire with documents and other items including a voice mail from club owner Michael Derderian from before the fire.

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, February 18, 2006

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Daniel M. Biechele, the Great White tour manager who set off the pyrotechnics that caused the catastrophic fire at The Station nightclub, will testify as a prosecution witness in the criminal case against the two brothers who owned the club, according to newly released court documents.

In papers released late yesterday, prosecutors in the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch say they plan to present Biechele -- who pleaded guilty last week to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the fire -- as a state's witness when Michael and Jeffrey Derderian are tried for manslaughter later this year.

The court filing says that "Mr. Biechele is expected to testify consistent with" statements he gave prosecutors in the hours after the Feb. 20, 2003, fire; two subsequent interviews; his phone records; documents retrieved from his suitcase and laptop computer; a voice-mail recording from Michael Derderian to Biechele that was made six days before the fire, and documents and other items seized from the Great White tour bus.

The new court papers also say that prosecutors plan to call Aram Dermanouelian, the owner of American Foam, the Johnston company that sold highly flammable soundproofing foam to the Derderians, as a witness in the Derderians' trials. Dermanouelian was named earlier this week as a new defendant in a civil suit that was refiled in U.S. District Court by families of 90 of the 100 people who died in the nightclub fire. The civil suit alleges that Dermanouelian discouraged or prohibited his employees from disclosing the risks of the foam products his company sold and that his "intentional actions . . . were willful, wanton and reckless" and "a proximate cause of the deaths and injuries to plaintiffs."

The Derderians bought highly flammable polyurethane foam from American Foam and installed it in their nightclub as soundproofing. When Biechele set off the pyrotechnics at the start of Great White's show, sparks from the fireworks ignited the foam that had been glued to the ceiling and walls of the club. The foam helped the fire spread rapidly through the wood-frame building, raising temperatures hundreds of degrees in about 90 seconds.

The Derderians, who are scheduled to face separate trials late this spring, each face 200 charges of involuntary manslaughter -- two for each person who died in the fire at their nightclub. Each set of 100 counts was brought under a different legal theory: one that the defendants committed misdemeanors that resulted in the deaths and one that the defendants were grossly negligent, resulting in the deaths.

A pretrial conference in the Derderians' cases is scheduled for next Thursday afternoon before Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr.

Biechele, 29, of Florida, pleaded guilty to 100 misdemeanor manslaughter charges. The misdemeanor that he admitted committing -- which resulted in the deaths of 100 people -- was shooting off fireworks without a permit. In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed the 100 gross negligence counts against him. Biechele is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8. As part of the plea agreement, his sentence will not exceed 10 years in prison.

At last week's plea hearing, Biechele agreed under oath with the prosecution's account that Michael Derderian had given permission for him to use fireworks inside The Station.

tbreton@projo.com/ (401) 277-7362