French national Georges Antoine Thevenet was sentenced on Wednesday, 12 March 2025 to one year in prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a “negligent fumigation” incident. Thevenet is a woodmaking artist who worked with used wood yet was not a professional fumigation outfit.
This tragic event resulted in the deaths of Adelle Marie Ruiz León and her two-month-old daughter in their apartment in the upscale Piantini district.
An excess in the use of a toxic fumigation chemical in an empty apartment with termite problems and whose vapors seeped through the electricity piping to the apartment above intoxicating the family of four that was living there. The father and son survived. Yet the fumigation caused severe health issues for the deceased’s husband and the one-year-old son.
Judge Milagros Ramírez of the Ninth Criminal Chamber of the National District handed down the sentence, stating that Thevenet had violated multiple articles of Dominican law. These include Article 319 of the Dominican Penal Code, sections of Environment Law 64-00, and Law 311 that regulate the use of insecticides, zoocides, and fungicides, among others.
The maximum jail sentence in the case would have been three years in jail. The family could yet appeal the sentence.
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Noticias SIN
13 March 2025