Julio Gonzalez, the 37-year-old Cuban immigrant convicted last month of setting the fatal fire at the Happyland Social Club, has received the maximum sentence that the law allows, 25 years to life imprisonment.

District Attorney Robert T. Johnson said that while the defendant has received "all the justice currently available under state law, the maximum sentence in this case, is inadequate, given the magnitude of the crime.

The maximum sentence available amounts to about three and a half months imprisonment for each victim.

Johnson is urging the state legislature to change the law to allow judges to impose consecutive sentences for each death, in cases where a single criminal act claims multiple victims.

87 people were killed in the fire at the Happyland Social Club, at 1959 Southern Boulevard, just hours before dawn on Sunday, March 25th 1990.

Gonzalez was convicted on August 19th, of 174 counts of murder in the 2nd degree, one count of Arson in the 1st degree and one count of assault in the 1st degree.

"This is a monumental tragedy". State Supreme Court Justice Burton Roberts said in passing sentence. "What is the extent of a tragedy that causes dreams to be shattered and lives to be erased".

Justice Roberts sentenced Gonzalez to serve 25 years to life imprisonment on each of the 174 counts of "felony" murder and "depraved indifference" murder, 25 years to life for the single count of arson in the 1st degree and 5 to 15 years for assault in the 1st degree.

Justice Roberts reminded the relatives of the victims and others in the courtroom that by law the sentences must run concurrently. He appealed to the state legislature to give judges the option of imposing a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

The prosecution team was led by Assistant District Attorney Eric Warner, who said that the effects of the Happyland Club tragedy were so profound, that :literally, an entire Country mourned the people who died".

Warner, Senior Executive District Attorney, was assigned by Assistant District Attorney Robert Dreher, Deputy Chief of the Trial Division, and Assistant District Attorney Lisa Loscalzo.