Sentencing set for tour manager in club fire

Ty Longley, a Brookfield High School graduate, was a guitarist with Great White.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- In the three years since The Station nightclub fire, the relatives of the 100 people killed have clustered for memorials at the site and mourned alone in cemeteries.
But they have never had a chance to share their pain in open court in front of the man whose pyrotechnics sparked the blaze.
That opportunity will come this week, as Daniel Biechele is sentenced in a three-day hearing starting today that is expected to showcase emotionally wrenching testimonials from the families.
Biechele, 29, was tour manager for the rock band Great White when he set off a pyrotechnics display during a Feb. 20, 2003, concert, igniting a fire that swiftly enveloped the crowded nightclub.
Brookfield High School graduate Ty Longley, 31, a guitarist with Great White, was killed in the fire. He had left home in 1991 to pursue his dream. He spent some time playing in a band in Boulder, Colo., but quit that job and moved to California, first linking up with Great White in 1999.
He had a kind heart, his father Pat Longley said shortly after his son's death. "His mother [Mary Pat Fredericksen of Valdosta, Ga.,] said it best, 'His heart was as big as his hair,'" a reference to Ty's naturally curly hair that he wore in long, springy ringlets.
Plea agreement
Biechele will be sentenced under a plea agreement to as many as 10 years in prison, and prosecutors are recommending the maximum. His lawyers are asking for community service instead of prison time.
Biechele was to have been the first of the three defendants to stand trial. Instead, he became in February the first to take responsibility, pleading guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, who owned the club in West Warwick, each face 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter and are accused of installing the flammable sound-proofing foam that fueled the fire.
About 30 family members plan to present impact statements to the judge. Others have written remarks that will be read aloud by a representative from the attorney general's office Tuesday.
Some victims' relatives have no interest in attending the hearing.
Contacted Sunday, Pat Longley said he will not attend and did not submit an impact statement. He believes most family members of victims who will attend the hearing want Biechele to be prosecuted.
Longley, who works in the construction industry, said he blames city building inspectors more than Biechele or the club owners. He said the nightclub should not have been allowed to operate in that building.
'Being railroaded'
"In my opinion the guy [Biechele] is being railroaded," Longley said. "He was just a roadie doing his job. If he's guilty of anything, it's bad judgment."
"I do not want to hear the details of what happened," said Paul Roe, whose daughter Lori Durante, 40, died. "We've been living this thing over three years now. I just can't do it."
As the 1980s rock band launched into its first song, prosecutors say, Biechele ignited four small pyrotechnic devices that spewed streams of sparks. The sparks ignited flammable foam around the stage.
A television cameraman's tape of the fire shows dark smoke spreading through the club as panicked concertgoers push toward the front exit, where many ultimately became trapped.
Though Biechele used the pyrotechnics in previous Great White concerts, he did not have a permit to ignite them in Rhode Island. Biechele says he had permission from Michael Derderian to use the pyrotechnics. The Derderians have said no such permission was given.
Ten months after the fire, a grand jury indicted Biechele and the Derderians on 200 counts each of involuntary manslaughter -- two counts for each person killed under separate legal theories. The Derderians have pleaded innocent. Michael Derderian's trial is to start July 31; no date has been set for Jeffrey Derderian's.
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