Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 28, 1990 TAG: 9003280568
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/7 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
A grand jury Tuesday began hearing evidence against 36-year-old Julio Gonzalez, charged with 87 murders in the blaze at the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx. Police said he set the fire early Sunday after being snubbed by an ex-girlfriend who worked there.
"We'll have a made case even if he backs out of the confession," said Edward McCarthy, spokesman for the Bronx prosecutor's office.
Gonzalez was transferred Tuesday to a prison unit within the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, where a fellow inmate said he raged for hours against his ex-girlfriend.
"He is so emotionally distraught that tears keep coming down," the inmate, Louis Cuascut, said in today's New York Post. "He seems very, very depressed."
The Happy Land club had been ordered closed for fire and safety code violations and the landlord was trying to evict the owner for non-payment of rent.
The building that housed the illegal club was subleased to the club's operator by a company co-owned by actress Kathleen Turner's husband, Jay Weiss. He leased it from one of New York's biggest landlords, Alex DiLorenzo III.
Turner said she was shocked by the fire but that her husband wasn't to blame.
The actress, starring in a Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," said she was afraid that people would come to her home seeking vengeance.
Among those scheduled to testify against Gonzalez are his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, a worker at the club, and the man who sold Gonzalez the $1 worth of gasoline he allegedly used to start the blaze.
"And then we have the container that held the gasoline, his sneakers, which were soaked with gasoline," McCarthy said. "We even cut up a hunk of the floor and brought it in to prove the burn pattern was caused by gasoline."
District Attorney Robert Johnson said Gonzalez gave police a videotaped statement in which he admitted that he torched the Happy Land in a pique against Feliciano.
Feliciano left the club before the fire. Four other people escaped the inferno.
Authorities had warned DiLorenzo that Happy Land was riddled with violations, including an illegally added second floor, no sprinklers on the first floor, no second exit and no fire alarms, Building Commissioner Charles Smith said in today's New York Times.
Normally the violations report would have been forwarded by the owner to the leaseholder, but Weiss' attorneys said they never received a formal notice of the violations. They would not comment on whether they knew of them.
Weiss, through his lawyer, Roger Boyle, said Tuesday that One Peach Associates, a company he owns with Morris Jaffe, leased the building in 1985 from DiLorenzo's Clarendon Place Corp.
One Peach two years later leased the club to its operator, Elias Colon, for up to $1,950 a month. Boyle said that since last spring the company had been trying to evict Colon for not paying rent. The case was to have been heard in court today. Colon died in the fire.
One Peach also leased space to a second after-hours club, called La Salsa, around the corner from Happy Land, for $2,500 a month, the Daily News reported today.
Because many of the fire victims were poor Honduran immigrants, 10 airlines have offered to ship the remains free from Miami to Honduras, said Larry Mackler, a spokesman for the American Red Cross. The Red Cross plans to fly next-of-kin back as well to make funeral arrangements.
by CNB