Parole Board members Dr. Frederic G. Reamer and Lisa Holley last night listen as Robert Johnson testifies at a parole hearing for Station nightclub owner Michael Derderian. Johnson’s son, Derek, died in the 2003 Station nightclub fire.

The Providence Journal Kris Craig

WARWICK — William C. Bonardi, who lost his only child in the Station nightclub fire, sat at a folding table in the Warwick police station last night, his wife, Dorothy, by his side, and urged the state’s Parole Board not to grant Michael Derderian, a co-owner of the nightclub, early release from prison.

“The Station fire tragedy, as we are aware, could have been prevented,” the Lincoln resident said. “However, Michael Derderian’s penchant for money overshadowed his obligation to provide a safe environment for his patrons. As a result, 100 lives were lost and 200-plus marred for life.” And Derderian, he asserted, has not shown an ounce of remorse for the crimes he committed.

Bonardi was one of 19 people who testified last night during a 2½-hour hearing to oppose Derderian’s bid for parole from his four-year sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions. It was the first part of a two-part hearing that the Parole Board is holding to determine whether he should be released from the ACI before his term is up.

Derderian, who is scheduled to address the board in private next Wednesday, was not at last night’s hearing, which was held in a community room at police headquarters. He is eligible for parole after serving one-third of his sentence which began — after he pleaded no contest to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter — on Sept. 29, 2006.

One hundred people died as a result of the Feb. 20, 2003, nightclub fire, which started when pyrotechnics used by the rock band Great White ignited highly flammable polyurethane foam that Derderian and his brother, Jeffrey, had installed on the club’s walls and ceiling as soundproofing.

Like Michael Derderian, Daniel M. Biechele, the band’s tour manager who set off the fireworks, was sentenced to four years in prison and is due to be released on parole in March. Jeffrey Derderian pleaded no contest to the same charges as the other two defendants but was given a sentence of community service and no jail time.

In addressing the Parole Board last night, Bonardi called Michael Derderian “arrogant, cocky and belligerent,” someone who failed to operate a safe nightclub because of his love of money. “The Station building was substandard with numerous safety violations for years but no one gave a damn, particularly the owners,” he asserted.

The heart-wrenching statements given last night by those who lost loved ones in the fire — or whose family members suffered injuries in the blaze — mirrored those given at the hearings previously held in Superior Court before the defendants’ sentencings.

Some came clutching photographs of their deceased children and then, as they addressed the Parole Board, broke down in tears. The father of fire victim Tammy Mattera-Housa, of Warwick, approached the table where the board members were sitting after his wife finished addressing them so that each of them could take a good look at pictures of the 29-year-old daughter he lost at The Station and the two young sons she left behind.

Some who spoke still haven’t gotten over what they decried as overly lenient, “slap on the wrist” sentences meted out in the case.

Robert Johnson, whose son, Derek, died in the fire, called Michael Derderian “a bum” and the judge who sentenced him, Francis J. Darigan Jr., “a moron” who should be thrown off the bench. He also lashed out at prosecutors in the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch who he said refuse to take phone calls from him because he wants them to explain “who put that [plea] deal on the table.”

Gina Russo, of Cranston, who suffered burns over 40 percent of her body in the fire and has undergone 49 surgeries as a result — and is facing still more — says she has gone back to work again. But she lost her fiancÉ, Alfred Crisostomi, in the blaze and told the Parole Board that allowing Michael Derderian early release would be just another injustice for the victims. “If we can survive a life sentence, he can serve a lousy four years,” she said.

Russo told the Parole Board members that if she was a braver person, she would have taken off all her clothes so they could see all the scars that riddle her body and the gauze that holds her wig in place. “I will have surgeries for the rest of my life,” she said. “I woke up from an 11-week coma [after the fire] to find out that the man I was supposed to marry was gone.”

Like many of the others who testified, Russo ridiculed a scholarship fund that the Derderian brothers recently established to benefit children who lost parents in the fire. “It is blood money,” she asserted. “All these kids want their parents back. Their money won’t fix that.”

Bonardi said that on the surface, the scholarship fund was “an admirable gesture, but in reality” it was just “a cunning, clever attempt to redeem their tarnished image and salvage their reputation.”

Almost everyone who testified excoriated Michael Derderian for his lack of remorse and his flagrant violation of the rules — his failure to prevent overcrowding at his nightclub; buying cheap, flammable foam to cover the ceiling and walls of The Station; his flouting of state laws that required him to have workers’ compensation insurance for his employees; and while he has been in prison, getting kicked out of a work-release program for not following regulations set by the Department of Corrections.

Eileen DiBonaventura, whose son, Albert, died in the fire, called Michael Derderian “a serious danger to society.”

“It is disturbing to us that this person is being considered for early parole and we’ve been sentenced to life without parole,” she said. “This person does not understand that human life is a gift that is to be protected and treasured at all cost.”

tbreton@projo.com