This past week, the media has been abuzz with the testimonies of those who were at the JetSet Club on 8 April 2025 and with expert opinions on the collapse of the roof and legal perspectives.
President Luis Abinader has entrusted the Oficina Naiconal de Evaluacion Sismica y Vulnerabilidad de Infrastructura y Edificaciones (Onesvie) to prepare a technical report on what happened. The report would be ready in three months. The president of the Codia, the Engineers, Architects and Surveyors Guild, had said they were prepared to carry out a report in a week.
The Attorney General Office is in charge of the investigations. At the Attorney General Office, Wilson Camacho, former director of Administrative Corruption and today director of the Prosecution Department together with National District prosecutor Rosalba Ramos are designated to lead the investigation.
The debris from the night club was deposited in a lot in Santiago and at the Feria Ganadera.
As of Tuesday, 15 April 2025, 231 persons had died, including 221 at the JetSet Club site and others who were hospitalized. An estimated 189 persons were injured, in addition to the 221 who died at the nightclub under the collapse of the concrete roof. Hospital reports are that 13 persons are still hospitalized.
Lawyer Felix Portes said in an interview with Colombia Alcántara that the testimonies and samples of the rubble taken to the Feria Ganadera are sufficient evidence to prepare the case. The lawyer is the first to present a legal complaint (querella), accusing the company that owns the property of involuntary murder and requesting compensation for his first client.
Portes in the interview says he expects the case to take about six years in court and thus proposes that the government establish a fund to help the victims get back on with their lives as the case goes through the courts. He says this would be in the same way the government helps victims of natural disasters. He has included the government in the complaint and call for reparations given his understanding there was negligence in the government carrying out its supervisory role.
The maximum sentence for involuntary murder in the Dominican Republic, according to the Penal Code that dates back to 1890, is two years in jail (Art. 319). Yet the Civil Code allows for reparations.
Whether and for how much the nightclub was insured is not yet known. In the best of scenarios that amount would have to be divided among the more than 500 victims – staff, injured, relatives of the dead. But insurances have a ceiling and news commentator Julio Hazim says it could be that the insurance company decide not to pay on grounds of the violations that could be proven to the contract – lack of maintenance and overloading of the roof.
Persio Maldonado, editor of El Nuevo Diario has called for kickstarting a plan to certify public spaces. He urges the government wait no more and set the guidelines for certifications to be issued for public and private installations and public spaces. Maldonado in an editorial says the cost of these certifications can be covered by the entities that are evaluated by experts regarding their infrastructure and operational logistics. He suggests the findings be made public and placed in visible places at the entrance to the entities.
The media continues to focus on the different opinions. Along these lines, Alicia Ortega used a good section of her Monday, El Informe con Alicia Ortega investigative report to look into the legal aspects of the tragedy. The conclusion by expert engineer Andrik Soto, was that the edifice had been built to be a movie house not a modern discotheque with heavy sound systems, air conditioning, hanging lights and power generator.
The testimony of the pianist of Rubby Perez orchestra who survived the incident explains how the JetSet Club only had a front and back door and the back door was locked and it took time for it to be opened. He was the first to exit through the back door. The lack of adequate emergency exits are likely to work against the owners.
PUCMM sports law and civil reparations law professor Francisco Lapouble (Lapouble Jansen Morales law firm) gives a thorough breakdown of the legal implications in his expose for the Matutino Alternativo on 11 April 2025. He stresses that the organizer of the concert was obliged to guarantee the safety of the patrons, performers and staff in general as part of the contractual obligation assumed when selling tickets to the event.
Lapouble explains that jurisprudence has established for years that, in order for the accused to be exempted from reparations, an external cause of force majeure must be proven. “It is important to clarify that this was not a matter of mere chance. Rather, it was a series of actions mishandled, that can be proven by properly conducted expert assessments, while others were neglected—issues that were entirely avoidable. In legal terms, these shortcomings are inexcusable,” says the legal expert.
Nevertheless, he expects the responsibility to be divided between the private company and the government. In the government, negligence will need to be proven in the cases of the City Government of the National District, Ministry of Interior & Police (that gives the alcohol vending-licence and monitors noise), the firemen that are under the City Government of the National District, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Housing.
Likewise, lawyer Reemberto Pichardo argues in an interview with Aneudy Santos that it was a systemic failure of responsibilities on behalf of the government. “There is more public than private responsibility in this case,” he says referring to all the government institutions that were called on to supervise the quality of the public space. He says that the Codia is the organization that should have been called to issue a report, not the Onesvie. He also attributes responsibility to the city government as per Municipal Law 176.
For Hoy Mismo, the first responding firemen that were at the JetSet from 1am clarified that the fire that impacted the night club in 2023 occurred at a power plant that was in a section separate from the main building of the club and thus it is not true that that fire had weakened the structure. The firemen did not clarify if the power plant was relocated to the roof as has been reported. Coronel Genaro de Jesús Rodríguez, director of the Technical Department of the National District Firemen gave the explanations together with Mayor Angel Luis Fromero, technical director and general inspector in the interview for Hoy Mismo. They were the closest and were called through the 911 system on 8 April 2025.
Somos Pueblo looks into the opinions of Julio Martinez Pozo of Zol de la Mañana, a radio station owned by the same owner of JetSet Club, who has called for an investigation of the possibility that there was an intentional explosion. The opinion has been rejected also by lawyer Felix Portes and by all who have analyzed the collapse of the roof. Julio Martinez Pozo is a news commentator of one of the stationed owned by the same owner of JetSet Club.
Follow the story in Spanish:
Ministry of Interior & Police
Listin Diario
El Nacional
Diario Libre
El Nuevo Diario
Alicia Ortega –
Noticias SIN
Matutino Alternativo – Francisco Lapouble
El Mitin
Hoy Mismo interview with firemen
Somos Pueblo
Pianist gives his explanation
Aneudy Santos interview with Remberto Pichardo
Acento
Ivan Ruiz + El Show de la Telerealidad
16 April 2025