Kathleen M. Hagerty, a lawyer for the owners of The Station nightclub where 100 people died in a 2003 fire, yesterday lashed out at Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who she said was lying about his office’s handling of the criminal cases against her clients.

Lynch’s handling of the Station fire case and the plea agreement for Jeffrey and Michael Derderian has become the focal point of his reelection campaign against Republican J. William W. Harsch.

Hagerty asserted that the attorney general’s “continued denial of any responsibility or involvement by his office” for the less-than-jail sentence imposed on Jeffrey Derderian earlier this month “is simply false and misleading to the public.” She said she feared that Lynch’s public comments published in yesterday’s Providence Journal – in which he claims that “we fought to the end” to secure a prison sentence for Derderian and never agreed to a suspended prison sentence – “are reckless and seemingly intended to incite the public.” She said she feared Lynch’s misrepresentations could “endanger the safety of my client and his family.”

In what Hagerty called an attempt to expose “the truth of what transpired and led to the imposition of the sentences received by Jeffrey and Michael Derderian,” she released a slew of e-mails between herself and William J. Ferland, the lead prosecutor in the Station fire case.

She says the e-mails show that Ferland offered the no-jail sentence for Jeffrey Derderian and that later, after Lynch decided he opposed the deal, Ferland expressed fear that he might have to look for a new job.

But Ferland, in his first interview about the controversial Derderian pleas, said yesterday that the e-mails don’t prove anything more than the fact that “I was contemplating” a less-than-jail term for Jeffrey Derderian – because that was something that Hagerty was proposing. He said he expressed a willingness to bring Hagerty’s proposal to Lynch but that “the attorney general was emphatic that he’d never agree to a disposition of less than jail.”

“I never, ever said this was an offer from the attorney general.… It was her impression by my favorable tone and collegial approach that that was something that would happen and that’s not the case at all.”

Hagerty said she was releasing the e-mails since The Providence Journal had asked the Department of Attorney General to turn them over as part of a public-records request. To date, Lynch’s office has declined to release them, saying it needs more time to reply to the request.

On Sept. 29, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian each pleaded no-contest to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. sentenced Michael Derderian to serve four years in a medium-security prison work-release program. Jeffrey Derderian got a 10-year suspended prison sentence and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service.

The e-mails between Hagerty and Ferland show that while the prosecutor and defense lawyer were working to hash out a plea-agreement throughout August and September, both sides were also simultaneously gearing up to try the case, exchanging information, preparing a juror questionnaire and reviewing jurors’ responses as the date for Michael Derderian’s trial neared.

On Aug. 11, Hagerty e-mailed Ferland to ask whether he would agree to a three-year prison term for Michael so “we both stop working on this. What are you looking at for Jeffrey – a 4yr” suspended sentence and probation? she asks. “I think giving less than Biechele [Daniel Biechele, the Great White tour manager who received a four-year prison term for setting off pyrotechnics inside The Station] could get this done and I also think it would assist you guys in the decision for no jail for Jeffrey in that the club owners are not as culpable as the pyro guy,” she wrote.

“There is absolutely no way in the world we could get him three. I have not thought about the length of a suspended for Jeff,” Ferland replied.

Later, on Aug. 11, Hagerty e-mailed Ferland back: “I am trying to hold out hope…what if Jeffrey pleads to manslaughter and gets some ss [suspended sentence] and Mike does the four but pleads to the misdemeanor? I don’t know what this guy is going to do and quite frankly I am somewhat annoyed that you’ve got me thinking plea again…. Anyway if he pleads to misdemeanors it will save his professional licenses and that may be enough to entice him…let me know your thoughts.”

On Aug. 16, Ferland e-mailed Hagerty with a list of the first 25 witnesses the state planned to call in Michael Derderian’s trial. “Not happening on the misdemeanor,” he tells her.

On Saturday, Sept. 2, Hagerty sends another e-mail to Ferland: “I guess there is really nothing more that either of us can think of to resolve the matter?”

“Unfortunately, no, I cannot think of anything. We are fated to try this darn thing,” Ferland replied a few hours later.

But on Sept. 6, Hagerty e-mails Ferland to tell him: “I still think there is hope in resolving this, maybe after next week” but that she is concerned that Darigan “won’t assist in facilitating a resolution but that he may obstruct one.”

“I agree,” replied Ferland the following day. “The judge completely ignores me when I mention anything about a plea.”

There is nothing in the e-mails that reveals how the plea agreement got hammered out. But at 9:25 p.m. on Sept. 20 – about 3 ½ hours after details of the controversial plea deal were leaked to the media, along with a copy of a letter written by Lynch to the fire victims expressing his outrage – Hagerty wrote this e-mail to Ferland: “I want you to know that when asked how the plea deal came together ‘in light of the attorney general’s vehement opposition,’ I told the truth, that Judge Darigan was simply honoring the disposition previously offered by the state and we gave the specifics and a copy of the writing to The Providence Journal. The Attorney General’s letter and more importantly his decision to make the plea public was the reason. Personally, I hope you don’t choose to fall on your sword for this guy. His decision to release that letter to the press without letting us see it first and more importantly making what the judge was trying to accomplish futile and letting these poor people find out in that way is unforgivable.”

Ferland replied: “I look forward to what will now be my third career,” in an e-mail sent the following morning.

Later that night, after Lynch had publicly stated that his office had never proposed the deal Darigan was going to impose and that it was Hagerty’s deal, Hagerty sent another e-mail to Ferland in which she complained about his boss. Lynch, she said, was calling her “a liar and spinmeister.… How could he ever do that and more importantly what do you intend to do about it. I know this puts you in a terrible position but if you don’t fix this I will ask Judge Darigan to as he was also present when you forthrightly acknowledged that you had made that offer and that we had accepted it. This is insane and needs to stop.”

On Sept. 22, Ferland replied: “I am deeply saddened by your apparent efforts to professionally ruin me. I have always treated you with respect and admired you as a tenacious attorney. [Your] personal attacks upon me have upset my family and close friends.”

“There have been no personal attacks on you by me in fact quite the opposite,” Hagerty replied. “While I certainly regret that you had to be put square in the middle of this you can thank Patrick and these absurd lies he is telling. At least I hope it is a lie when he attributes things to you that are untrue. I have gone out of my way to inform the media that I believe you to be an honorable and dedicated prosecutor. We both know that you made that offer and that it was out there and once rejected since approximately August 10th. I obviously don’t know and have never pretended to understand what happened in your office between the time we accepted the offer and you returned to the judge’s chambers to inform him that there were now problems with the deal.… I certainly understand your obvious reluctance to memorialize in any way anything further to me regarding this case but I hope you do something to stop your boss from any further attempts to distort the truth about what happened here.”

Ferland said yesterday that he can’t understand why Hagerty is “trying to muddy me up. Prior to this case, we had enjoyed an amicable, professional relationship.” He insisted that the only deal the state ever offered to the Derderians was “a capped plea” that would have sent both Derderians to prison, which the defendants repeatedly rejected.

Ferland agreed that in the weeks leading up to the trial there were plea discussions because “in a case of this magnitude, with the complex legal theory we were proceeding under, and with the prospect of a four-month trial, I would be derelict in my duties not to discuss the possibility of a resolution short of a trial.”

But Ferland said that up until August, when Michael Derderian told him, “I’d like to accept responsibility,” he always thought the case would be tried.

Ferland said he was “taken aback” by Derderian’s comment, and that as Hagerty sat by her client in the courthouse, he explained to Derderian that he’d have to serve “more time than Dan Biechele.” Hagerty, he said, later informed him that that was unacceptable but that she “kept sending up a trial balloon” to see if she could cut more favorable deals for the two brothers. He said the deal that was ultimately accepted by Darigan was one of those proposals floated by Hagerty – which he said he agreed to bring to Lynch but which was rejected, just as it had been two years earlier when defense lawyer Richard M. Egbert proposed “no jail for one of the two defendants.”

Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Lynch, said last night that the attorney general did not want to talk about the e-mails but that at Lynch’s request, he was issuing the following statement: “Why Ms. Hagerty continues to violate the trust of a former colleague, Bill Ferland; why she continues to break the spirit if not the letter of the rules regarding professional conduct of lawyers; why she has decided to inject herself in the attorney general’s political campaign at the last minute – all of these choices she’s made are puzzling and offensive and disappointing. But she’s made them and she’ll have to live with them.”