The owner of the Jet Set nightclub in the Dominican Republic was arrested last week and charged with involuntary homicide over the tragic roof collapse on April 8 where 235 people died and nearly 200 more were injured. According to The New York Times, prosecutors arrested and charged club owner Antonio Espaillat on June 12 after a club employee provided authorities with evidence showing he’d warned the club’s owners that they should cancel that night’s show because of the poor condition of the club’s roof.
The deadly incident occurred during a show by merengue singer Rubby Pérez at the beloved music venue that was celebrating its 50th anniversary. The singer’s manager said at the time that the roof collapsed about an hour after the show’s midnight start time. In addition to killing many fans, the collapse also took the lives of Pérez’s saxophone player, as well as former Major League Baseball players Octavio Dotel and Tony Enrique Blanco Cabrera and Nelsy Cruz, the governor of the northwestern province of Montecristi whose brother is seven-time MLB All-Star Nelson Cruz.
The Times described Espaillat as a wealthy businessman whose family also owns a chain of radio stations; Espaillat’s sister, who helped manage the club, was also charged with involuntary homicide. The attorney general’s office said in a statement that the siblings “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.”
In addition, the AG’s office claimed the Espaillat’s attempted to “manipulate or intimidate” employees who could be potential witnesses in the case, not offering any details on those alleged efforts. The club was owned by Espaillat and his mother and, the Times reported, its roof had undergone years of “repeated repairs.”
In a local TV interview two weeks after the collapse, Espaillat said that the club’s ceiling panels often got soaked from water leaks from the air conditioning units on the roof, with workers reportedly replacing ceiling panels on the day of the Pérez show. Though the owner said he wasn’t aware the roof situation was so pressing, an employee shared information with investigators reportedly showing that Espaillat had been warned about the peril.
The unnamed employee’s lawyer said his client had turned their phone over to investigators, containing 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.”
The Times reported that of lawsuits have been filed over the incident and that an engineering report reviewing the collapse was completed last week, but that its contents have not yet been made public.