Club Owners to Plead No Contest in Fire

The Station nightclub owners, Michael, left, and Jeffrey Derderian, right, are seen during a hearing at the Superior Court in Providence, R.I., in this Oct. 26, 2005, file photo. A lawyer for the owners of the nightclub where 100 people died in a 2003 fire said Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006, they will plead no contest to involuntary manslaughter charges. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki, File) (Chitose Suzuki - AP)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The owners of a nightclub where a 2003 fire killed 100 people will plead no contest to involuntary manslaughter charges, and only one will have to serve prison time, their lawyer said Wednesday. Victims' relatives were outraged.

Kathleen Hagerty said brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian will enter the pleas more than 3 1/2 years after pyrotechnics ignited foam soundproofing as a 1980s heavy metal band started playing at The Station nightclub.

Hagerty confirmed that Michael Derderian will serve 4 years in a minimum security prison, with eligibility for a work release program, and that Jeffrey Derderian will receive a suspended 10-year sentence.

Relatives of those killed were furious about what they considered to be light punishments for the brothers' role in the fourth-deadliest fire in U.S. history, a tragedy that touched untold thousands of people in the nation's smallest state.

"I can't believe the attorney general is just going to stand by and say OK to this," said Diane Mattera, whose 29-year-old daughter, Tammy Mattera-Housa, died in the fire.

Hagerty confirmed the pleas after WJAR-TV and The Providence Journal reported on a letter Attorney General Patrick Lynch wrote to families of those killed to announce the plea deal. A spokesman for Lynch did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment; media reported that Lynch was making calls to family members Wednesday night.

Lynch says in the letter that he objects to the sentences that Superior Court Judge Francis Darigan has said he will give the Derderians.

"Most significantly, I strongly disagree with the Court's intention to sentence Jeffrey Derderian to less than jail," he wrote. He added, however, that the plea deals mean the brothers are accepting criminal responsibility "despite months of denials."

The Derderians will change their pleas Sept. 29 and will be sentenced once relatives of those killed have a chance to present victim impact statements, according to the letter.

Many relatives of victims, including Robert Bruyere, whose stepdaughter, Bonnie Hamelin, died in the fire, said they learned about the plea from news reports.

Lynch "better hope I don't see him in person, because I'll be in jail," Bruyere said in a telephone interview as his wife, Claire, sobbed in the background.

The plea comes as jury selection was under way for Michael Derderian's criminal trial; his brother's trial was to have followed.