American Notes PUERTO RICO

"His intention was to scare people," said a San Juan police spokesman of Hector Escudero Aponte. But when the kitchen worker at the labor-troubled Dupont Plaza hotel ignited a container of cooking fuel atop a stack of furniture boxes in the hotel ballroom on New Year's Eve, he set off a conflagration that killed 96 people. Police said Escudero admitted his role in the second worst hotel fire in U.S. history after witnesses led investigators to him. He was accused of 96 counts of murder, as well as charges of arson and conspiracy. The next day authorities arrested Armando Jimenez Rivera, a busboy, for allegedly providing Escudero with the fuel. Both men pleaded innocent; further arrests are expected.