CURRENT AND FORMER PROPERTY OWNERS FOUND GUILTY IN DEATHS OF TWO NYC FIREFIGHTERS IN DEADLY ‘BLACK SUNDAY’ BLAZE AT BRONX APARTMENT BUILDING IN JANUARY 2005
Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a jury has held a landlord and its agent criminally responsible for the deaths of two New York City firefighters who jumped to their deaths while battling a fire in an apartment house in the Tremont section of the Bronx in January 2005.
The jury found Cesar Rios, 52, of New Fairfield, Connecticut, and 234 East 178th Street Limited Liability Company guilty on two counts of Criminally Negligent Homicide, a Class E felony offense, and one count of Reckless Endangerment in the 2nd degree in the deaths of Lt. John Bellew and Lt.Curtis Meyran and injuries to Lt. Joseph DiBernardo, and Firefighters Jeffrey Cool, Eugene Stolowski and Brendan Cawley. Rios, who sold the property a year before the fatal fire occurred, was charged in his capacity as an “agent” for the current owner.
District Attorney Johnson said: “There is absolutely no verdict that can compensate the families of the deceased or the survivors of this tragedy for their loss, their grief and their pain. That being said, it is most appropriate that those who through their greed caused, this needless suffering receive significant punishment.”
Criminally negligent homicide is a Class E felony offense punishable by a maximum sentence of up to four years imprisonment. Reckless Endangerment in the 2nd degree is a Class A Misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum sentence of up to a year in jail. The company that owned the building, 234 East 178th Street LLC, can be fined as much as $15,000.
The jury found that the deaths and injuries were the result of the firefighters becoming trapped because of the illegal subdivision of apartments in the building at 236 East 178th Street. Partition walls that were built in order to create additional bedrooms blocked access to a fire escape, thereby forcing the firefighters to jump from a fourth floor window in order to avoid being burned.
The People argued that the evidence showed that the defendants’ “reckless toleration” of the dangerous conditions at 236 East 178th Street constituted “criminal negligence” which resulted in the fire. The defendants also were found to have “recklessly engaged in conduct which created a substantial risk of serious physical injury” to firefighters and residents of an occupied building.
The fire was determined to have originated in a third floor apartment in a failed electrical extension cord which overheated and cause a short in an outlet which in turn set a bed on fire. Firefighters were in an identically subdivided apartment directly overhead on the fourth floor searching for any occupants who may have still have been on the premises, when the blaze spread and trapped them.
Today’s conviction is the result of a 14-month-long joint investigation with the New York City Department of Investigation, the New York City Fire Department, and the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
State Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy set June 1, 2009 for a decision on post trial motions by the defense.
The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Glucksman, Senior Trial Assistant District Attorney Miriam Bell Blair and Assistant District Attorney Sharif Nesheiwat of the Investigations Division.
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