OAKLAND — Two former residents were held to answer on 36 counts each of involuntary manslaughter for their alleged involvement in the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire a year ago, a judge said Thursday.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner’s ruling means the case against Derick Almena and Max Harris will go to trial.
Earlier, in an emotional moment in an Oakland courtroom on Thursday, prosecutor David Lim read out the names of the 36 victims of the on Dec. 2, 2016, Ghost Ship fire as family and friends put their arms around each other and wiped away tears. During the six-day preliminary hearing, it was the first time evidence was presented.
Harris’ attorney Curtis Briggs said outside the courtroom Thursday afternoon that the hearing so far has been “an indictment on the city of Oakland,” and that the landlord is to be blamed, not his client.
During his closing argument Thursday, Almena’s attorney Tony Serra vigorously pushed back against blame. “How can they say my client is negligent when they don’t even know how the fire started?” Serra said.
“The city sitting on its hands was far more culpable than my client.”
Prosecutor Autrey James argued in closing statements that both Almena and Harris were criminally negligent. He said Almena, on his own, changed the use of the building, allowing upwards of 25 people to live in a space that was legally only supposed to be a warehouse. Almena changed the space, including building a staircase, cutting a large hole in the second floor, all without proper permits, he said.
Harris was the self-titled “Executive Director” of the warehouse, took rent from other residents, and even helped resolve duties.
“Almena and Harris, their conduct was those of management,” James said. He said they had a duty to those tenants they managed.
“Did they fail in their duty to protect? Absolutely,” James said.
Tyler Smith, another attorney for Max Harris went through several allegations by the prosecution, and one by one dismissed them or said there wasn’t any evidence against his client.
But Judge Horner called out that during testimony, witnesses called the Ghost Ship warehouse a “death trap.”
“Both defendants had an integral and substantial role at the premises which was described as a ‘death trap,'” the judge said.
He found sufficient cause that both men be held responsible for what happened that night, which he called “an unspeakable tragedy.”
Testimony from Oakland Fire Marshal Miguel Trujillo on Thursday morning revealed that the building at 1305 31st Ave., commonly referred to as Satya Yuga or the Ghost Ship, had not been formally inspected since it was built in 1930.
An alleged one-page document that fire Capt. George Freelen testified to filing out in September 2014, after visiting the warehouse when he was a lieutenant with the department, cannot be found.
Serra said outside the courtroom that the local firefighters at the nearby Station 13 on Derby Avenue were “friendly” with his client, and they “wanted to look the other way,” he said.
Almena and Nicholas “Nico” Bouchard signed a lease agreement with the building owners, the Ng family in 2013 for the warehouse space, outlining in the lease that the use of the warehouse would be an art collective “to build and create theatrical sets and offer workshops for community outreach.”
In a cross-examination of Trujillo by Serra, Trujillo agreed that if the owners rented the space as an art collective, without getting city permission for a change in use, that it would be a violation of the city code.
During Thursday’s hearing, Lim read out the names of the 36 victims as part of a stipulation, or agreed upon statement by all attorneys, that the 36 people all died of smoke inhalation around 11:25 p.m. the night of Dec. 2, 2016.
During the somber moment, the mother of Michela Gregory, 20, cried, a friend put her arm around her as her daughter’s name, and the name of her daughter’s boyfriend, Alex Vega, 22, were read aloud. The Gregorys have been present every day of the preliminary hearing.
Briggs also placed an arm on the back of his client, Harris, whose supporters also quietly cried, their sniffles audible as Lim read the names.
An earlier hearing to reduce Harris’ bail from the current $750,000 each, was denied by the judge, despite his friend Elissa Roy stating that Harris could live with her. Roy quietly sobbed outside the courtroom Thursday after the judge’s ruling that her friend would be held on all his charges.
Both Almena and Harris will next appear in court in January.
