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Promoter Sentenced to Four Years Over Deadly Stampede at Steve Aoki Show

LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 31: DJ Steve Aoki performs on the Dylan Stage during day 2 of the 2014 Budweiser Made in America Festival at Los Angeles Grand Park on August 31, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Anheuser-Busch)

Miguel Ángel Flores, the Spanish promoter behind a 2012 Steve Aoki concert where five people died following a crowd stampede, has been sentenced to the maximum penalty of four years in prison, El Mundo reports. Seven of the 14 other defendants—mostly operators of the event-security firms contracted for the show—were convicted of crimes including negligent homicide and manslaughter. The final seven people named in the case, including paramedics, security personnel, and Madrid’s former police chief, were acquitted.

Flores had permission to admit 10,620 concertgoers to the Thriller Music Park event at Madrid Arena on Halloween night in 2012, but judges determined that the show was oversold by almost 6,000 additional tickets and that safety measures, such as sufficient fire exits, were not in place. Panic erupted in a section of the venue when a flare went off, triggering a crush that killed 18-year-old Rocío Oña, Cristina Arce, and Katia Esteban, 17-year-old Belén Langdon, and 20-year-old Maria Teresa Alonso.

Although part of Flores’ conviction forbids him from professional event production, El Mundo reports today that Flores intends to reopen his Madrid nightclub, Macumba, on October 14 (via RA). Read El Mundo‘s story on Flores’s sentencing (in Spanish) here.