Authorities said the founder of an artist warehouse in California, who died in 36 people five years ago, was burned.
The office of Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said in a statement that Derick Almena, the master tenant of the Ghost Ship Warehouse in Oakland, California, could serve the remainder of his prison sentence at home with a GPS monitor. .
In a statement read by Almena’s attorney Tony Serra in court, Almena apologized for his role in the fire on December 2, 2016, saying, ‘I’m very scared to say more,’ the San Francisco Chronicle reported. ‘I’m sick of shame. I’m so sorry. My shame can not 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 found the charges in an earlier trial. The same jury acquitted a co-accused, Max Harris, who also faced involuntary charges of manslaughter.
Almena and Harris had agreed on an earlier plea agreement and would be sentenced to nine and six years respectively when Judge James Cramer rejected the agreement, saying Almena had not accepted ‘full responsibility and remorse’ for the fire.
Almena rented the warehouse in 2013 to build theater sets, but prosecutors said he began subletting sections to other artists. Harris apparently helped convert the building into a living area, arrange large parties and collect rent.
Prosecutors turned the warehouse into a “death trap” filled with flammable objects, blocked exits and no fire alarms or sprinklers.
A defense attorney for Almena argued that a society that allows the kind of extreme wealth and poverty that exists in the San Francisco Bay Area was to blame for the fire.
“People like Derek take a warehouse and get people out of the gutter and put a roof over their heads and do not have the money to set it up according to Oakland laws,” attorney Brian Getz said. ‘And that’s why it happened. ‘
Last year, the city of Oakland agreed to pay more than $ 32 million to settle a case brought by the victims of the fire, including $ 23.5 million for the families of those who died and $ 9 million. 2 million for a survivor who sustained critical injuries.