Santo Domingo.- A Dominican court ordered a one-week recess this Friday in the trial against Antonio and Maribel Espaillat, who are being prosecuted for the 2025 collapse of the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo, which caused 236 deaths and dozens of injuries, following the presentation of evidence by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
As established by the Court of First Instance of the National District, the hearing will resume next Friday, September 25, at 09:00 local time (13:00 GMT).
Upon leaving the court, lawyer Luis Custodio stated to the media that the process continues to “verify that the owners of Jet Set had prior knowledge of what was happening.”
“It was a normality (for them) to know that the ceiling tiles were breaking, to know that it always rained more inside than outside,” he/she asserted.
In the evidence presented this Friday, it was established that Maribel told her brother that everything was “falling apart,” in reference to the state of the nightclub before the collapse occurred, because after days without rain and without the air conditioning on, water was still falling inside the nightclub, Custodio indicated.
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The case
The collapse of the nightclub roof occurred in the early hours of April 8, 2025, while hundreds of people were attending a performance by Dominican merengue artist Rubby Pérez, who died in the incident along with one of the musicians from his orchestra.
Among the victims were also former Dominican Major League pitcher Octavio Dotel, designer Martín Polanco, and a son of the former President of the Senate and current Dominican Minister of Public Works, Eduardo Estrella.
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There were also among the deceased eighteen Venezuelans, three Spanish-Dominicans, two French, one Haitian, one Colombian, one Costa Rican, one Italian, and one Kenyan.
The mother of Nelsy Cruz, the governor of Montecristi (northwest) who passed away in the tragedy, requested that the owners be prosecuted for voluntary manslaughter, instead of the current classification of involuntary manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
The nightclub owners were aware that “there were problems” and, nevertheless, “did not resolve anything,” he asserted.
In last week’s hearing, three experts from the Public Prosecutor’s Office agreed that the collapse of the nightclub’s roof was caused by an overload of the structure.
According to the experts, a weight overload overcame the roof’s resistance due to the progressive placement of elements such as thin layers of concrete, water tanks, small structures, air conditioning equipment, and sound and lighting systems.
