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BY ERIC TUCKER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Manager sentenced for blaze that killed 100
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A former rock-band manager whose pyrotechnics caused a nightclub fire that killed 100 people was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison — well short of the maximum — drawing sobs and groans from victims' relatives.
Some were so angered by the sentence given to Daniel Biechele — who could have received 10 years — that they stormed out of the courtroom. One man yelled "Typical (expletive) Rhode Island."
"What do you think of your son now?" Patricia Belanger shouted to Biechele's mother, Belanger, who lost her 30-year-old daughter, Dina Ann DeMaio, told reporters afterward: "Now it's her turn to suffer, just
like we've been suffering because of her son."
Before sentencing, Biechele gazed downward and choked back tears as he apologized for the Feb. 20, 2003, blaze at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.
"I don't know that I'll ever forgive myself for what happened that night, so I can't expect anyone else to," he said, his lip quivering. "I never wanted anyone to be hurt in any way. I never imagined that anyone ever would be."
Testimony from victims' relatives Monday and Tuesday left lawyers, court officials and at one point the defendant himself in tears. Some described a grief so powerful that they could not get out of bed in the morning, and said they looked forward to nothing except being reunited with their loved
ones in death.
Superior Court Judge Francis Darigan Jr. gave Biechele, 29, less than half the sentence he could have received under a deal he struck with prosecutors in February, when he pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Victims' families briefly thought Biechele was getting a 15-year sentence, but the judge suspended 11 years of that term.
"We've already suffered almost that long—four years. We've already suffered that long," said Michelle Hoell, whose sister, Tanny Mattera-Housa, died in the fire.
DeMaio's sister, Jessica Garvey, called the sentence "infuriating" and "ridiculous."
"Four years is nothing," she said outside court.
In explaining his sentence,
Darigan told Biechele, "The
greatest sentence that can be imposed upon you has been imposed upon you by yourself, that is having to live a life, an entire life, knowing that your actions were the proximate cause of the deaths of 100 people."
deaths of 100 people Biechele, the first person to be sentenced for the fire, was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and transported to the state prison in Cranston to begin serving his sentence. The owners of the club are awaiting trial on manslaughter charges.
charges.
Biechele was the tour manager for the heavy metal band Great White when he lit a pyrtechnics display that ignited highly flammable foam that lined the walls and ceiling of the nightclub. The foam was used as soundproofing and was placed there by the owners after neighbors complained about noise.
Mary Murphy/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Defense attorney Tom Briody, right, comforts his client Dan Biechele as he reacts to his sentencing on 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday at Superior Court in Providence, R.I. Biechele was sentenced to 15 years —11 years suspended and four to serve —for setting off a flashy display during a Feb. 20, 2003, concert, that lit a nightclub on fire and killed 100 people.
Wanted: Northern pikeminnow
FISHING
BY JEFF BARNARD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHINOOK LANDING, Ore. — On his first cast of the season, Jim Walker pitched a lure resembling a baby salmon into the dark green waters of the Columbia River and - BAM!
— hooked a 24-inch fish with a $4 bounty on its head.
But alas, "we didn't hook another one all day," the 73-year-old retiree said.
It may not always be easy, but fishermen who can fill their coolers can also fill their pockets — some getting nearly $40,000 — for helping to control the most voracious predator of baby salmon in the Columbia Basin, the northern pikeminnow.
To help make up for the harm done to salmon by the government's hydroelectric dams in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the Bonneville Power Administration is paying a bounty of $4 to $8 for each northern pike-minnow caught, as long as it is at least nine inches long.
There are also more than 1,000 specially tagged bonus fish worth $500 each scattered through the 450 miles of the lower Columbia and Snake rivers to attract more fishermen and help biologists gauge the effect of the bounties.
Fishermen have to turn in the pikeminnows to claim the bounty. The fish are then ground up into fertilizer. (An attempt a few years ago to turn them into fish sticks in Chicago proved a failure. Pikeminnows are not good eating; they are bony and the flesh is mushy and has little flavor.)
Over the years, federal, state and local governments have offered bounties on such creatures as coyotes, gophers, crows, skunks and swamp rats known as nutrata. But this is believed to
be the only federal bounty now being offered for fish.
Folks who really work at it,
12 to 18 hours a day and seven
days a week, can gross $20,000
during the May-to-October
season. Two of the 1,800 people
who collected bounties last
year got paid close to $40,000
each.
"It does take a lot of work, and it does take some knowledge to really catch them consistently," said Tim Caldwell, 46, who was 10th on the money list with $19,084 for 2,425 fish, two of them bonus fish. "I'm after it for the money."
Caldwell has been bounty fishing since the program started in 1991, full-time since he sold his gas station and tackle shop three years ago. His best day was 141 fish, but when he got home he was as tired as he has ever been in his life, having gotten up at 2 a.m. and fished until 10 p.m.
No more classrooms, no more books
Michelle Grittmann/Kansai
Travis Workman, Lecompton senior, puts books back onto the shelves of the KU Bookstore at the Union for summer classes. Workman said it would take a few days to get the shelves completely stocked because the professors were still placing orders for texts.
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