Owners of Doomed Nightclub in Dominican Republic Knew Roof Was Shoddy
It was 2:23 p.m. on a Monday in Santo Domingo, 379 tickets had already been sold for a big show that night at the Jet Set disco, and the club's reservations manager, Gregorio Adames, was getting worried: Chunks of the roof were falling, knocking down ceiling panels.
Panels had come loose before, but he suddenly realized that the damage was more dangerous than anyone thought. The trouble wasn't the panels: It was the roof itself.
'Sir, there's an important issue that needs to be reviewed at the disco,' he wrote in a WhatsApp message to his boss, Antonio Espaillat, the club's owner and a radio station mogul, according to a 126-page criminal indictment released this weekend.
When another chunk came down at 11:40 p.m., bruising a customer, Mr. Adames urged his boss to cancel the show, prosecutors said. But Mr. Espaillat was out of town, and his sister, Maribel Espaillat, who also managed the club, said she wasn't authorized to make big decisions without him.
At 12:44 a.m. on the morning of April 8, the decades-old roof of the building, Santo Domingo's most popular nightclub, came crashing down, ultimately killing 235 people and injuring nearly 200 more. The victims came from nine countries; five were from the United States. One hundred and thirty children lost parents, with 15 losing both parents. The dead ranged in age from 17 to 71.
The Espaillats face involuntary homicide charges and have been jailed pending a bond hearing this week. Prosecutors are asking for Mr. Espaillat to be held without bail and for his sister to be under house arrest.
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