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Jul 19, 2007 5:20 pm US/Eastern
Derderian Launches Fund To Help Fire Victims' Kids
WARWICK, R.I. (WBZ) ―
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Derderian held his first news conference Thursday since being sentenced last fall on his no contest plea for 100 involuntary manslaughter charges
WBZ
The owner of a nightclub where 100 people were killed in a fire says he could have left Rhode Island and pretended the tragedy never happened. But he says he can't do that because the disaster happened at his doorstep.
Jeffrey Derderian held his first news conference Thursday since he was sentenced last fall on his no contest plea for 100 involuntary manslaughter charges. It's also the first news conference he's held since two days after the 2003 fire.
"There's two choices in this," he said. "Either you do nothing, you move away, you tell people you used to live in Rhode Island, you go on and try to act like it didn't happen. Or there's this path to take which is to try to do something."
Derderian, his brother, and their longtime friend Jody King launched
The Station Education Fund, a charity that will benefit the 76 children who lost a parent in the Station nightclub fire.
"This is not an effort to act like this didn't happen or make it go away or to say this is going to make it all better. We know that it's not," Derderian said. "But we are just committed to do something to try and help these kids."
Derderian says his family put thousands of dollars into the fund to launch it. Families can begin applying now. Some grants may be awarded in the fall.
Derderian's brother, Michael, was sent to prison after his no contest plea. Jeff Derderian says Michael had a rough time in prison at first, but is doing better.
He says they're both willing to speak with the lawyers for families of those killed and for those who are injured to help them in a slew of lawsuits that were filed after the fire.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
