The owner of a nightclub in the Dominican Republic whose roof collapsed during a concert in April, killing 236 people, was arrested yesterday and charged with involuntary homicide, The New York Times reports.
The arrest came after a club employee showed police evidence that he had warned the owner that the concert should be canceled because the roof was in danger of collapsing.
The roof came down at around 12.45am Tuesday 8 April during the club’s Monday dance night, a live-music fixture in Dominican society for decades.
Among the dead were two former Major League Baseball players, a provincial governor, the well-known merengue singer Rubby Pérez, the city’s director of urban infrastructure, and the minister of public works’ son.
The building was around 50 years old and had previously been a cinema.
Owner and sister arrested
The owner, Antonio Espaillat, is a prominent businessman whose family also owns a string of radio stations.
He was detained yesterday after appearing before the attorney general’s office for questioning. His sister Maribel Espaillat, who helped manage the club, was also charged.
Two weeks after the tragedy, Mr. Espaillat told a local television station that water from the club’s air conditioning system often soaked the ceiling panels.
The panels had been replaced on the day of the collapse, but he claimed to have had no idea of the danger.
The employee gave his phone to investigators.
Before the Espaillats’ arrest, on Wednesday, the employee’s lawyer Plinio Pina spoke to reporters in Santo Domingo.
“Our client presented, basically, evidence of conversations in which he gave an account of the situation at the nightclub in which he expressed his fears and apprehensions, and his suggestion that the event be suspended, and that was ignored,” Pina told reporters.
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