Three New York City construction officials indicted and arraigned on Dec. 22 in connection with a fatal fire at a vacant Ground Zero high-rise being cleaned of asbestos and demolished posted bail and will reappear in court in Manhattan on Jan. 7. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau charged the officials, including the site safety manager for project contractor Bovis Lend Lease LLC, with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. The charges relate to their alleged roles in the August 2007 fire at the Deutsche Bank building that killed two city firefighters.
Indicted were Bovis official Jeffrey Melofchik, lead project-safety manager; Mitchel Alvo, abatement director for The John Galt Corp., the Bronx, N.Y., demolition subcontractor; and Salvatore DePaola, a Galt foreman and believed to be a member of laborers’ union Local 79 in New York City. The Galt firm also was indicted. The building, adjacent to the World Trade Center, was damaged on Sept. 11, 2001. Killed in 2007 were Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino.