Prosecutors have a second chance to show that a Clinton Township business owner whose warehouse exploded in March 2024, killing a 19-year-old, was criminally negligent in his actions in storing hazardous materials.
A preliminary exam begins Tuesday morning in Clinton Township’s 41B District Court for Noor Kestou to determine if there’s enough evidence for him to stand trial in the death of Turner Lee Salter, 19.
The hearing will mark the second time Kestou has faced a preliminary exam after a Macomb County judge ruled in March that District Court Judge Sebastian Lucido abused his discretion when he ordered Kestou to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter last fall during his first preliminary exam. The case was then sent back to district court. Now, Lucido will hear testimony again.
Salter was killed when a warehouse Kesou owned at 15 Mile and Groesbeck exploded in March of 2024, sending thousands of nitrous oxide cylinders, butane containers and lithium batteries that were inside it as far as a mile away. One of those canisters struck Salter in the head a quarter of a mile away, killing him. Investigators still do not know the cause of the fire.
Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Michael Servitto wrote in his decision last fall to throw out the district court bindover that prosecutors did not show probable cause that Kestou caused Salter’s death.
Prosecutors had argued Kestou was grossly negligent when he improperly stored too much nitrous oxide and butane together in his Clinton Township facility, which is not allowed under the law unless certain precautions are taken.
During his first preliminary exam, Clinton Township building inspectors and fire officials testified that they didn’t know Kestou was storing hazardous materials at his building, which operated as Select Distributors and the Goo Smoke Shop.
Kestou’s attorneys, meanwhile, argued that prosecutors cannot accuse Kestou of causing the fire inside his warehouse because he had too much nitrous oxide and butane in his facility, when investigators have not been able to determine a cause for the fire.
After the explosion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent $1.6 million cleaning up the site, recycling more than 28,000 intact and fire-damaged nitrous oxide cylinders along with more than 170,000 lithium-ion batteries.
Witnesses never explained why nitrous and butane are actually hazardous, Servitto wrote, as the township’s fire code states the materials are nonflammable and noncombustible. He said the prosecution never provided evidence that the local storage regulations are intended to “prevent the materials from “igniting or exploding” and never established that Kestou possessed excessive quantities of flammable or explosive materials.
Although butane is uncontrovertibly flammable, Servitto wrote, prosecutors did not show evidence that it is explosive as well, nor did they show evidence of how ignited butane might react with nitrous oxide.
In their written argument, Kestou’s attorneys said it was a “cavernous evidentiary gap” to not be able to say if the fire was caused by Kestou or caused in a manner that was foreseeable.
While Kestou’s lawyers argued that their client had large amounts of nitrous oxide and butane in his shop for a long time and nothing happened, Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Carmen DeFranco said that logic did not make sense. He compared that to saying if he drove over 100 mph previously and it did not cause a problem, the speeding wouldn’t be a factor if he got into a crash.
“Having 30 times the amount of something you’re supposed to have, that’s dangerous, and that is ultimately what caused this,” DeFranco said.
kberg@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Clinton Twp. warehouse explosion manslaughter case in court for 2nd time
Reporting by Kara Berg, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Kara Berg, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
