Almena contrite in his first testimony
The founder of the Ghost Ship artists’ collective appeared to be on the verge of tears almost immediately after taking the stand Monday — the first day in his longawaited testimony — rubbing his eyes, pausing before answering questions and telling his attorney he accepts responsibility for the deadly fire that killed 36 people.
“I instigated something, I drove something ... I dreamed something,” said Derick Almena, one of the codefendants in the criminal trial for an Oakland warehouse fire in 2016, as he described creating the artists’ community.
“I invited beautiful people to my space,” he said.
In his first day before jurors, Almena struck a contrite
and sometimes tortured tone. Dressed in a navy blue suit and a white, collared shirt, Almena took a long pause before spelling his last name for the court reporter.
In the first question for his client, his defense attorney, Tony Serra, asked Almena how he was doing.
Almena closed his eyes and said, “I’m tired, brokenhearted. I’ve been in solitary confinement for two years.” Almena has been kept in “administrative segregation” at Santa Rita jail in Dublin for extra security and other reasons, according to Ray Kelly, spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff ’s Office. “I’m just so sad,” he added. Serra asked his client about his time on suicide watch, and the fact that he had gained 60 pounds since his arrest.
“I’ve become very unhealthy,” Almena said.
Almena, 49, master tenant of the Ghost Ship warehouse, and codefendant Max Harris, 29, each face three dozen charges of involuntary manslaughter for the victims killed in the Ghost Ship blaze. It was Almena’s first time taking the stand to defend himself against the charges.
Almena’s testimony failed to move Grace Lovio, the girlfriend of Jason McCarty, a 36yearold man who died in the fire.
“I think he was performing remorse,” Lovio said after proceedings ended for the day. “Because he hasn’t shown remorse up to this point.”
Lovio noted that the victims’ families were very vocal about Almena’s lack of remorse just prior to his tossed plea agreement last year. She predicted that Almena would remain calm as long as his defense attorney was asking the questions.
When the prosecution begins to question his truthfulness, “he’s gonna lash out like Max Harris did,” Lovio said, referring to Harris’ contentious testimony. “(Almena will) show us who he really is.”
Serra offered a different interpretation after court Monday afternoon.
“I thought he started beautifully,” the defense attorney told reporters, adding “everyone expects him to be arrogant and selfcentered.”
Serra said he wasn’t surprised by his client’s display of emotion. Almena, he said, wept several times during their private conversations.
“He’s not a tough guy. He’s not a criminal. He is an artist,” Serra said.
Serra later in the afternoon walked Almena through his earlier years, prior to founding the Ghost Ship. Almena said he used art as an escape from the violence that plagued Los Angeles in his youth, tracing comic books and later embracing photography.
The defense team displayed images of Almena’s photography, and Almena talked about his and his wife’s travels around the world. The two began collecting pieces of art from India, Thailand, Morocco and Bali, and bringing them back to the U.S.
“I started to believe and understand that certain types of art were an endangered species,” he said.
The Ghost Ship warehouse was conceived as a space to display the pieces, and to provide a public service for artists’ exhibits and events.
Serra later turned the testimony toward the building’s landlords, Chor Ng and her son and daughter. Almena said he pestered the Ng family to make upgrades to the space, and that he believed they held responsibility for keeping the building up to code.
There was “a definite understanding” that people were living in the facility, Almena said.
Three defense witnesses were called to the stand Monday morning, as victims’ family packed into the Oakland courtroom prior to the main event.
Two were Oakland police officers who interacted with Almena prior to the deadly blaze on Dec. 2, 2016, at the warehouse in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Defense attorneys throughout the trial have held up police officers, firefighters and building inspectors who visited the space to argue that seasoned professionals didn’t flag the space for hazards.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have said that Almena and Harris illegally modified the warehouse, resulting in “no notice, no time and no exits” for the victims trapped by the deadly blaze. They called to the stand dozens of witnesses — fire survivors, victims’ family members, warehouse tenants, investigators, and police and fire personnel — to drive that point home.
The cause of the fire has never been identified, though an investigator said in a preliminary hearing that she believes it was caused by electrical issues.
Defense attorneys have attempted to push the blame to government officials, making the case that police, firefighters and childservice workers toured the warehouse before the fire and failed to report it for dangerous conditions. The defense argued that officials who were trained to spot safety hazards failed in their duties, and that prosecutors discounted evidence that the blaze could have been ignited by arsonists.
On the stand, Almena will be in a position to make a direct appeal to the jury, but it has risks.
Last August, the judge tossed Almena’s plea deal, saying he did not show true remorse. The judge’s decision came after he reviewed a lengthy essay by Almena. In the essay, Almena blamed others for the fire and called himself a victim — resulting in the judge concluding that the defendant had not yet fully acknowledged his responsibility for the tragedy.
Under the plea agreement, Almena and Harris would have been sentenced to nine and six years, respectively, in county jail.
Before the judge handed down his ruling, Almena addressed the victim’s families and told them he should have died that night.
Your children “were the best our society had to offer,” Almena said. “I wish I wasn’t born. I am in hell, OK? If I could give each of you my life — and my children’s lives — I would.”
During testimony earlier in the trial, Almena’s wife, Micah Allison, disputed an Oakland fire investigator’s testimony that officials never entered the warehouse nearly two years before the deadly music concert.
Allison said she saw Almena giving fire investigators a tour of the space in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood after someone set a couch on fire outside the warehouse. The testimony occurred nearly a month after Maria Sabatini, an Oakland fire investigator, took the stand and told jurors that she investigated the outdoor arson but never stepped inside the warehouse.
Harris took the stand last month and told the jury he did not believe the Ghost Ship was a death trap or tinderbox. Prosecutors say Harris ran daytoday to operations of the warehouse, though Harris testified his role was less important.
On the night of the inferno, Harris testified that he stamped smiley faces on the hands of 80 to 90 people who arrived at Ghost Ship for an electronic dance party. He said he had volunteered to work the door while the concert’s promoter, who organized the event, collected money at the door.
During the crossexamination, Harris admitted he told “untruths” before and after the fire regarding his role at the warehouse.
Before the fire, Ghost Ship operated as an unsanctioned livework artists collective called Satya Yuga. It housed about 25 people at the time of the fire. The victims of the deadly inferno were attending the music show on the warehouse’s second floor, except one person who was a tenant.