Key ruling due in Ground Zero tower fire case
The three men charged in the deaths of two firefighters in a blaze at a contaminated, condemned ground zero skyscraper say they’re scapegoats. Prosecutors say the men are to blame for disregarding and covering up a major safety hazard.
A judge was expected to rule Friday on whether to toss out manslaughter and other charges against Mitchel Alvo, Salvatore DePaola and Jeffrey Melofchik. They are the only people facing criminal charges after a fire that led city officials to acknowledge oversight mistakes.
Alvo, 58, DePaola, 56, Melofchik, 48, and the John Galt Corp., which was helping to take down the former Deutsche Bank building, have pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the men could face up to 15 years in prison.
The building — just across the street from the World Trade Center’s south tower — was heavily damaged and filled with toxic debris when the tower collapsed into it on Sept. 11, 2001. A laborious process of dismantling the now government-owned building has taken years.
On Aug. 18, 2007, a construction worker’s careless smoking sparked a fire that tore through several stories of the building.
Firefighters contended with a roster of hazards, including deactivated sprinklers, blocked stairwells, an air system that was supposed to control toxins but ended up concentrating smoke, and a break in a crucial firefighting water pipe called a standpipe.
With the standpipe severed, it took 67 minutes for the firefighters to get water by other means to fight the blaze.
Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino became trapped on the burning 14th floor. They died of smoke inhalation after their oxygen tanks ran out.
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