Thursday, 4:30 PM
AG says again he was against Station Nightclub plea deal
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff, Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch today issued a statement reiterating his opposition to a plea deal in the Station nightclub fire case that will allow the club owners to plead "no contest" to criminal charges.
"My intention was always to prosecute these two criminal cases at trial," Lynch said in a statement issued by his office. "I do not agree with this disposition. I have not agreed to this disposition."
The deal, which Lynch described to families of victims in a letter sent out yesterday, would have Jeffrey Derderian serve 500 hours community and no prison time while his brother Michael would be sentenced to four years behind bars.
The brothers both face 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter – two for each person who died in the February 2003 fire. They could have faced up to 30 years in prison for each count, according to their lawyer, Kathleen Hagerty.
The deal has sparked outrage among some survivors and family members of victims. In his letter yesterday, Lynch wrote that he had been forced to make the deal by Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr.
But Hagerty told the Globe last night that Lynch had offered virtually an identical deal on Aug. 10. Her clients initially rejected the offer, Hagerty said, but they changed their minds to spare the community a painful trial.
On Sept. 7, Hagerty said, one of the prosecutors, William Ferland, renewed the deal in a meeting with her at the Kent County Courthouse in Warwick, as jury selection in Michael Derderian's trial was underway. Ferland wrote down the offer, said Hagerty, who gave a copy of the handwritten agreement to the Globe last night.
Both Lynch and Darigan are expected to speak with the media later today.
