As the first month of testimony ended April 29, New York Fire Dept. witnesses in the manslaughter trial of three construction managers in the 2007 Deutsche Bank fire in Manhattan painstakingly narrated the role of site conditions, particularly a dismantled standpipe, in the disaster that killed firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph P. Graffagnino.
The slow pace of testimony so far in the trial, which opened April 4, caused State Supreme Court Judge Rena K. Uviller to order prosecutors on May 2 to speed up the proceedings.