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Manslaughter charges brought in ground zero fire
2008-12-22
NEW YORK - Three construction supervisors and a subcontractor were indicted Monday on manslaughter charges in the 2007 deaths of two firefighters at a skyscraper that once housed Deutsche Bank at ground zero, but the city was not charged in the firefighters' deaths. Jeffrey Melofchik, Mitchel Alvo and Salvatore DePaola pleaded not guilty in state Supreme Court in Manhattan to charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. Each could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree manslaughter. The charges cap a 16-month investigation that exposed numerous failures by city officials. Prosecutors said they interviewed more than 150 people, examined more than 3 million documents and presented 80 witnesses to the grand jury. "Everybody who could have screwed up, screwed up here," District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said of the fire. Melofchik was the site safety manager for Bovis Lend Lease on the project, Alvo was the director of abatement for John Galt Corp. and DePaola was a Galt foreman. The Galt company, which was dropped from the project after the fire, also was charged. Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino were found dead of smoke inhalation in the former bank tower, a building heavily damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks. A construction worker's carelessly tossed cigarette caused the Aug. 18, 2007, fire, but the tragedy demonstrated a series of failures: The pipe supplying water to fire hoses was broken and the sprinklers didn't work, stairwells were blocked with plywood paneling meant to keep toxic debris in, no working elevator existed inside the building, and an air pressure system created more smoke. Investigators concluded that breakdowns by the Fire Department and Department of Buildings "contributed to the conditions that led to the deaths" of the firefighters, prosecutors said. The Fire Department -- which had a firehouse next door -- acknowledged it hadn't regularly inspected the building, as city law requires, for more than a year. Other city and state regulators had also been in the tower on a near-daily basis, but didn't report the hazards. While the city made major mistakes, governments are generally immune from criminal prosecutions under a centuries-old legal doctrine called "sovereign immunity," Morgenthau said. Prosecutors did reach an agreement with the city and Bovis that requires them to institute major safety measures. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement: "We will now be creating an additional civilian inspection unit at the Fire Department dedicated to construction, demolition and abatement sites." Michael Barasch, an attorney for the Beddia family, said news of charges represented "a bittersweet moment" for the family. He said the family intends to sue the contractors and the city. Graffagnino's father, Joseph Graffagnino Sr., said the results of the probe "wasted a lot of taxpayers' time and a lot of taxpayers' dollars." "The city seems to go after the little guys. They could have done this from the second day after the fire," Graffagnino said. "Why wait (16) months just to go indict the John Galt Company?" Galt was hired by Bovis and the building's owner, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., to remove toxic debris from the building and take it down floor by floor. The 41-story tower had been dismantled to 26 stories before the fire. The Occupational Safety and health Administration fined both contractors a combined $464,500 earlier this year for more than 40 safety violations at the building. State Supreme Court Justice Robert Stolz set bail at $250,000 for Alvo and Melofchik and $175,000 for DePaola. They were ordered to appear in court Jan. 7. Daniel Castleman, Morgenthau's chief deputy, said a second grand jury is investigating issues related to the fire, other than the firefighters' deaths. The former bank building's demolition was put on hold for about a year because of the blaze. The building's removal had been stalled previously by the discovery of hundreds of Sept. 11 victims' body parts left in the building and other accidents, one that sent a pipe through the roof of the neighboring firehouse.
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