Opposing attorneys were summing up their cases on June 15 in the manslaughter trial of three construction managers and a now-defunct subcontractor for the 2007 Manhattan high-rise fire that killed two firefighters. Predictably, they sharply disagreed over who was to blame for those deaths and 34 other injuries.
Prosecutor Joel J. Seidemann told jurors that fault lies with the defendants, who were tasked with removing asbestos from the former Deutsche Bank building and deconstructing its 40 floors. That work on the structure, damaged in the 9/11 attack in 2001, was completed in January.