The owner of Dominican Republic nightclub Jet Set, where a roof collapse two months ago killed 236 people, has been arrested and charged with involuntary homicide.
Tragedy struck the popular Santo Domingo nightclub during a show by Merengue artist Rubby Pérez on April 8, as air-conditioning units on the venue’s roof leaked through the venue’s plaster-reinforced ceiling, causing the roof to cave in and claim the lives of Pérez, a Domincan governor, former Major League Baseball players, and hundreds more. In the following days, 189 survivors were rescued from the rubble, per BBC News.
Jet Set owner Antonio Espaillat and his sister, club manager Maribel Espaillat, were taken into custody and charged on Thursday, after a club employee brought evidence to authorities that showed he had he warned the Espaillats to cancel the concert because the roof was in dangerous condition, according to a report from the New York Times.
In the fallout, critics cried out over a lack of building inspections across the Dominican Republic, a country that does not currently have a government office dedicated to inspections for private businesses. In the weeks after the tragedy, Antonio Espaillat issued an apology on television and said he planned to “face everything” in the legal proceedings to follow.
Now, in a statement, the attorney general’s office said the club’s owners “demonstrated immense irresponsibility and negligence by failing to do what was necessary to ensure that the Jet Set Club’s roof was adequately and expertly repaired.” The office also alleges that the siblings attempted to “manipulate or intimidate” employees who could be potential witnesses, according to the New York Times.
Read the full New York Times report here.
Featured image credit: Erika Santelices / Reuters.
