[ad_1]
OAKLAND, California – A key witness who is scheduled to testify this week in the unintentional murder trial involving a fire in a northern California warehouse, which killed 36 people, died in a car accident, prosecutors told a judge on Monday.
Alameda County attorneys had planned to call Robert Jacobitz to testify this week in the trial of Derick Almena and Max Harris, each charged with 36 counts of manslaughter in connection with the fire that occurred in an Oakland warehouse during an unauthorized music concert.
Prosecutors said they turned the warehouse into a place of entertainment and a dangerous home.
The Alameda County Deputy Attorney, Casey Bates, told jurors last week that Jacobitz was an unlicensed contractor who was performing inexpensive work at the warehouse soon after Almena rented him in November 2013.
Prosecutors allege that Almena, 49, had stuffed it with highly flammable furniture, pianos and other equipment and had not provided smoke detectors, alarms fire, sprinklers and other safety equipment. Prosecutors said Harris, 29, helped Almena convert the warehouse, collect rent and schedule concerts.
At the opening statement last week, Mr. Bates said that Almena had asked Jacobitz for an inexpensive help for the conversion of the warehouse after another contractor announced to Almena that It would cost at least $ 5,000 to install a fire door and new stairs leading to the second floor.
Prosecutors also said that Jacobitz had done some electrical work at the warehouse.
Investigators looked closely at the electrical system of the warehouse before determining the cause of the fire.
Testimonials in the Murder Trial of Derick Almena and Max Harris began Monday in Oakland with the mother in tears of one of the victims telling the jury the last moments of her daughter.
Carol Cidlik said that she had received a text message from her 29-year-old daughter Nicole Siegrist at 11:23 pm. the night of the fire.
"I'm going to die now," Nicole wrote to her mother. Investigators said that Siegrist and the other 35 victims all died of smoke inhalation a few minutes later.
[ad_2]
Source link