The founder of a California artists’ warehouse that burned in a massive fire that killed 36 people five years ago was sentenced on Monday to nine years in prison and three years of post-supervision freedom, officials said.
Alameda district attorney Nancy O’Malley’s office said in a statement that Derick Almena, the master tenant of the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, can serve the rest of his sentence at home with a GPS monitor.
In a statement read in court by Almena’s lawyer, Tony Serra, Almena apologized for his participation in the fire on December 2, 2016, saying: “I am very afraid to say more,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle. “I am sick with shame. I am so sorry. My shame cannot be a defense against what I am responsible for. “
Almena pleaded guilty to 36 counts of manslaughter in January, more than two years after a jury came to a halt over the charges in a previous trial. The same jury acquitted a co-defendant, Max Harris, who also faced charges of manslaughter.
Almena and Harris had agreed to a previous agreement and were sentenced to nine and six years, respectively, when Judge James Cramer rejected the agreement, saying that Almena had not accepted “full responsibility and remorse” for the fire.
Almena rented the warehouse in 2013 to build theatrical settings, but promoters said he started to sublease sections for other artists. Harris reportedly helped to convert the building into a living room, organize large parties and collect rent.
They converted the warehouse into a “death trap” filled with flammable objects, blocked outlets and no fire alarms or sprinklers, prosecutors said.
A defense lawyer in Almena argued that a society that allows the kind of extreme wealth and poverty that coexists in the San Francisco Bay area was to blame for the fire.
“People like Derek take a deposit and get people out of the gutter and put a roof over their heads and have no money to furnish it under Oakland law,” said the lawyer, Brian Getz. Why did this happen. “
Last year, the city of Oakland agreed to pay more than $ 32 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of the victims of the fire, including $ 23.5 million for the families of those who died and $ 9.2 million for a survivor who sustained serious injuries.