Lo piensan todos. Lo decimos nosotros. · Roberto Cavada

Tragedia del Jet Set: ¿236 muertes valen solo 2 años de cárcel?

·35 min·2 clips

Salcedo says that under Dominican law the Jet Set collapse — 236 dead — is not legally classified as a 'grave case,' capping the sentence at two years.

1. The show "Lo piensan todos, lo decimos nosotros" marks the first anniversary of the Jet Set nightclub collapse with an interview with attorney Carlos Salcedo, who represents a group of victims. 2. Carlos Salcedo is a Dominican lawyer with extensive criminal litigation experience; he is representing a group of victims but states throughout that his legal analysis is objective and not limited to his clients' positions. 3. The episode's central question is: one year after 236 people were killed, is the Dominican justice system handling this case with appropriate speed and seriousness? 4. Salcedo explains the current phase is the audiencia preliminar, the intermediate phase of Dominican criminal procedure, where the court determines which parties have standing, what evidence will go to trial, and whether the accused should face a full hearing. 5. He states there is more than sufficient evidence to send the case to trial, and that the Public Ministry's six-month investigation before presenting the accusation on November 24 was reasonable given the complexity and the need for expert engineering reports. 6. The charge of involuntary homicide under Article 319 of the Dominican Penal Code — not deliberate homicide — is, Salcedo argues, the only legally defensible charge: the Espaillat family's failure to maintain the structure and disregard for structural warnings constitutes culpable negligence but not a desired outcome. 7. Under the existing Penal Code, Article 319 carries a sentence of six months to two years and is tried before a single judge, not a collegiate tribunal, because it is not legally classified as a grave case — a classification Salcedo calls remarkable given 236 deaths. 8. A new Penal Code, drafted in direct response to the Jet Set tragedy, raises the maximum sentence to 10 years for gross negligence resulting in mass casualties, but cannot be applied retroactively to this case. 9. The primary reason for hearing postponements to date has not been defense obstruction or judicial error but the absence of witnesses and victims at citation and procedural notification failures by the tribunal's secretariat. 10. The judge ordered a counter-expert structural analysis at the defense's request after the Public Ministry failed to respond to the defense's earlier request to participate in the original expert assessment — a procedural omission Salcedo openly criticises. 11. The counter-expert team proposed by the defense includes engineers of non-Dominican nationality who do not reside in the country; the judge will need to evaluate their credentials, independence, and qualifications before accepting their findings. 12. Salcedo states the defense's counter-analysis will attempt to contradict each conclusion of the original expert commission led by Reyes Madera, director of the UNESBI, but predicts the judge will ultimately side with the original findings given the objective evidence. 13. Salcedo projects a complete timeline: the preliminary hearing closes within two months, the case goes to trial by late 2026, a court of appeal will take six to eight months, and the Supreme Court of Justice should resolve within six months — yielding a final irrevocable sentence in approximately three years. 14. Until a final sentence is confirmed, the accused — members of the Espaillat family who owned the venue — are subject only to non-custodial coercive measures: periodic reporting, economic guarantee, and exit ban, not preventive imprisonment. 15. A portion of the victim families have already accepted private compensation agreements with the Espaillat family; Salcedo explains that once a victim is economically satisfied, they exit the process as a civil actor but do not remove the Public Ministry's criminal prosecution. 16. He uses the parallel of airline crash litigation, where families routinely negotiate private settlements without any criminal action against executives, to argue that private compensation in the Jet Set case is legally and morally legitimate. 17. The hosts raise the issue of institutional liability — whether public bodies such as the National District town hall and the UNESBI bear responsibility for failing to enforce building codes and safety inspections at the venue. 18. Salcedo identifies a normative gap: Dominican administrative law gives town halls the faculty, not the obligation, to inspect private constructions, and there are no criminal or strong civil sanctions for failing to do so — a structural weakness this case should motivate legislators to close. 19. Listeners interested in Dominican criminal procedure, mass-casualty negligence litigation, or the institutional accountability debates following the Jet Set tragedy will find this a thorough and accessible breakdown. 20. Listeners seeking victim testimony, emotional accounts, or updates from the families directly affected may find this episode too procedurally focused.

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