"Gonzalez had told the four mental health experts that a voice told him to set the fire."

Mental illness or mind control?

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MAN GUILTY IN FIRE KILLING 87 AT CLUB N.Y. CITY VICTIMS MOSTLY IMMIGRANTS
San Francisco Examiner - Monday August 19, 1991
by Marlene Aig ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pg. Number - A2

NEW YORK - A Cuban refugee was found guilty Monday of setting a fire that killed 87 people at the Happy Land social club in what is believed to be the nation's largest mass murder. Members of Julio Gonzalez's family wept as the jury foreman repeated the word "guilty" 176 times - representing two murder counts for each victim - murder and murder with depraved indifference - as well as one count of arson and one of assault. Judge Burton Roberts set sentencing for Sept. 19. Gonzalez faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison, because all of the deaths stemmed from the same act. Gonzalez, who had admitted setting the fire but claimed temporary insanity, was convicted on the fourth day of deliberations. Eighty-seven people, many of them immigrants, died March 25, 1990, when fire swept the unlicensed Bronx club. Prosecutors said Gonzalez set the fire because he was angry at a former girlfriend who worked at the club. She was one of the few survivors. In a videotaped confession to the police that was shown to the jury, Gonzalez said: "I knew that I was going to do damage, but not of that intensity." Gonzalez had told the four mental health experts that a voice told him to set the fire.

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INSANITY DEFENSE AT ARSON TRIAL

[N.Y.] NEWSDAY - Friday November 16, 1990
by Anthony M. DeStefano. STAFF WRITER. Rose Marie Arce contributed to this story.
Page number: 26

The attorney for alleged Happy Land Social Club arsonist Julio Gonzalez announced yesterday he will use an insanity defense in the Cuban emigre's trial. Richard Berne, the court-appointed lawyer representing Gonzalez, told State Supreme Court Justice Burton Roberts that the psychological defense will be raised at the trial of the man accused of killing 87 people in the Bronx. The use of the psychological defense means that a jury could be asked to find that Gonzalez was not criminally responsibile for the deaths, even if he set the fire. If that were the finding, Gonzalez could be sent to a state mental facility, possibly for the rest of his life. The Bronx district attorney's office now will be able to have its own experts examine Gonzalez.

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A QUESTION OF SANITY
[N.Y.] Newsday - Sunday July 7, 1991
by Anthony M. DeStefano. STAFF WRITER
Page number - 05

TWO MATCHES LIT ON A SIDEWALK and one dollar's worth of gasoline. That was all it took, Julio Gonzalez told police, to set the March 25, 1990, inferno that killed 87 patrons at the Happy Land Social Club. Tomorrow, the trial of the 37-year-old Gonzalez begins in State Supreme Court in the Bronx with jury selection. The key issue -probably the only issue - will be whether he was legally insane when he started the blaze that resulted in the largest mass murder case in U.S. history. A 178-count indictment charges him with murder, felony murder, attempted murder, arson and assault in connection with the blaze. Prosecutors have three different statements Gonzalez made in which he talks about setting the fire after he was tossed out of the club by a bouncer who thought Gonzalez was harassing an old girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano. Feliciano survived the Happy Land fire and is expected to testify. Bronx Administrative Judge Burton Roberts is expected to rule tomorrow on the admissibility of those statements into evidence.

Many court observers and legal experts believe the only chance to beat a conviction is with the so-called "insanity defense," and Gonzalez' attorney has filed notice that he intends to use it. Earlier this year, after months of psychological evaluation by experts, Richard Berne, Gonzalez' court-appointed attorney, entered a plea that his client was not criminally responsible because of a mental disease or defect. So far, the only public evidence that Gonzalez was psychologically unstable the day of the fire is contained in his videotaped confession in which he told police, "I lost my mind" when going to buy gasoline to start the fire after being thrown out by the Happy Land bouncer.

In 1980, Gonzalez traveled to Florida as part of the Mariel boatlift and was found to be free of mental illnesses or diseases, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. [What happened to him *after* he arrived in this country? - M. Abernathy]. He spent time at two refugee centers and was released in February, 1981, according to the INS.

After the fire, Gonzalez told police in a confession that when he was thrown out of Happy Land by a bouncer he wanted to call police and tell them about the illegal operation of the club. "That is when I lost my head and went to buy the gasoline," Gonzalez told investigators. Immediately after the fire, he said, he began crying when he realized what he did. When asked bluntly during his confession why he set the fire, Gonzalez answered: "I don't know."

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MARtin F. ABErnathy --- [abemarf@aol.com] --- 7/27/01