Clinton Township — Attorneys for a Clinton Township warehouse owner say a district court judge abused his discretion when he ordered the owner to stand trial last fall for involuntary manslaughter in connection with a 2024 explosion that killed a Macomb County teen.

Noor Kestou's attorneys argued Monday 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.

"To put a business owner on trial is an injustice. He didn’t have anything to do with this death," attorney Peter Torrice argued Monday during a hearing for his motion to disregard the case being sent to stand trial from district court and to dismiss it.

When Kestou's warehouse on 15 Mile exploded in March of 2024, thousands of nitrous oxide cylinders, butane containers and lithium batteries on the site flew as far as a mile away. One canister struck 19-year-old Turner Lee Salter in the head a quarter of a mile away, killing him. Investigators still do not know the cause of the fire.

Prosecutors 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.

But Torrice argued Monday in front of Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Michael Servitto that prosecutors cannot argue that because Kestou had too much nitrous oxide and butane stored improperly that that was what caused the fire when there is no official cause for the fire. He said Kestou, at most, violated a zoning ordinance by having too much butane and nitrous oxide on his property.

"How can you say he is grossly negligent, he is responsible — and I'm referring to Mr. Kestou — for what occurred when you don't know what occurred?" Torrice said. "He's had those materials in that building for a long period of time and nothing occurred, so we don’t know what caused it. … it could’ve been any person in that building."

In their written argument, Torrice and Kestou's other 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.

Servitto said Torrice kept conflating what caused the explosion and what the effect of the explosion was.

"You keep saying it could be a superseding act, a superseding act of God, that caused this fire, that caused the explosion," Servitto said, "but we don't know that when the negligence and the gross negligence alleged is not what caused this, but the quantities (of hazardous materials).

"The entire point of these regulations ... is that it's to prevent a greater explosion from happening. What if there's enough explosives in this place to wipe out Macomb County? Does that matter?"

Torrice conceded that if there was enough explosives to wipe out Macomb County, and Kestou knew that, he would be making a different argument.

While Torrice argued that Kestou 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.

DeFranco said in his written argument to Servitto that it is "most certainly foreseeable that flammable and oxidizing hazardous chemicals could ignite or explode and potentially injure or kill others."

"(Kestou) cannot claim willful blindness to the statutes, building, zoning or fire codes," DeFranco said. "He either willfully ignored statutes and regulations designed to protect others from the dangers of the hazardous chemicals he bought and sold or he was willfully blind to such regulation... Such indifference to life and limb amounts to at least gross negligence."

Servitto did not rule on Kestou's attorneys' motion Monday, but said he would do so at a later time.

kberg@detroitnews.com