Arraignment is delayed in Oakland fire

Judge sets a new date for criminal charges in the deadly Ghost Ship blaze to allow transfer of the second suspect.

OAKLAND — A judge on Thursday delayed arraignment of the operator of an Oakland warehouse where three dozen people died in a devastating fire so a second defendant could be brought to court.

Derick Ion Almena and partner Max Harris are charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter — one for each person who died in the Dec. 2 fire that broke out in the cluttered residence and concert venue that Almena dubbed the Ghost Ship.

Relatives of some victims sat silently through an hour of courtroom delays before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Nixon agreed to a defense motion to hold over Almena’s arraignment until June 15 so that Harris, now jailed in Los Angeles County, can be transferred to face the charges.

Jeffrey Krasnoff, one of Almena’s attorneys, told the judge he would probably seek to delay pretrial and bail hearings 30 days more after that.

Almena, 47, appeared silently behind a glass partition, not visible to many in the courtroom.

After the brief hearing, Krasnoff stepped outside to make a short statement to a bank of waiting television cameras.

He called the criminal case “a distraction” from the responsibility that public agencies also face for not addressing fire safety hazards in the community.

On the sidewalk, the father of one victim told reporters he attended the hearing to see if Almena showed “remorse.”

“I just wanted to see his face,” said David Gregory, whose daughter Michela died in the fire.

The squat two-story warehouse in Oakland’s Fruitvale district operated as a rogue art collective and underground venue for music performances, and as an illegal home for some dozen itinerant tenants.

Thirty-six people died when a fire started during a band performance, the nation’s deadliest blaze in more than a decade.

No cause has been determined, but former tenants and firefighters described do-it-yourself wiring and an internal maze of structures and junk and haphazard wood stairs that made escape difficult.

Oakland prosecutors say Almena and Harris, a 27year-old tattoo artist and musician who allegedly helped Almena operate the Ghost Ship, worsened the danger by closing off a back staircase the night of the fire.

Both men are being held on $1.08-million bail.