Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office yesterday launched a criminal investigation into the Deutsche Bank blaze, which killed two firefighters who had waited in vain for water to flow through a faulty standpipe.
The DA’s Rackets Bureau, which has a history of prosecuting construction-related crimes, will handle the probe, which could bring charges as serious as criminally negligent homicide against the contractors and workers responsible for tearing the toxic building down, law-enforcement sources said.
Investigators have already discovered that two crucial sections of the standpipe, including a 20-foot piece, were deliberately cut “fairly recently” in the basement of the high-rise, possibly to supply air to the upper floors, city officials said.
The missing section was taken from a stretch of pipe that links the network to the outside connection.
Morgenthau’s announcement came just four days after Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino perished in a fire that Gov. Spitzer described as a “horror show,” a searing, smoky nightmare of failure complicated by a short air supply and dry hoses.
Other key developments that surfaced yesterday included:
* A source told The Post that Department of Buildings inspectors were on the site a day before the fire. The standpipe was visually inspected and “it looked good,” the source said. It was unclear, however, on which floor or floors the standpipe was inspected.
A department spokeswoman said the visual inspections typically check to make sure the standpipes are properly capped so the water flows properly.
* Last year, the local firehouse was told not to inspect the structure because the air quality in the building was not safe, according to Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy.
FDNY officials said that firefighters last inspected the standpipe in March 2005 and that it was functioning properly.
* Contractors or landlords are required to perform a hydrostatic – or water-pressure – test on standpipes every five years, city officials said. The last one done on the Deutsche Bank building was in November 1996.
The next test was scheduled for November 2001, but on Sept. 11, 2001, the Twin Towers were attacked and collapsed, critically damaging the Deutsche Bank building and filling it with toxic matter.
It is unclear why the standpipes were not inspected before or during the demolition.
Maintenance of the standpipe was the responsibility of Bovis Lend Lease, the lead contractor, according to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which owns the building.
The news came as New York’s Bravest crowded a Brooklyn funeral home for Graffagnino’s tearful wake. Firefighters from his SoHo engine company, polished and proud in their dress uniforms, climbed on a charter bus for their trip to say goodbye.
“It’s still too raw,” one firefighter said.
Cassidy applauded the criminal investigation and said New York was fortunate that more firefighters weren’t killed.
“We’re lucky we didn’t lose 25 firefighters,” he said. “There were 29 maydays given.”
Firefighters had climbed more than 14 floors to battle the blaze at 130 Liberty St., only to learn that the pipeline designed to carry water from the ground was inoperable.
With no water to immediately fight the fire, the blaze grew more intense, as the air supply began running out, officials said.
“Clearly, firefighters were sent into a death trap,” Cassidy said. “I think the Fire Department position is that they didn’t know how bad it was. We need to find out why they didn’t know.”
Among those trying to answer that question is Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose investigators are “reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the fire.
Although the building was being demolished a floor at a time to protect the neighborhood from toxic materials, Mayor Bloomberg defended the decision to send firefighters inside.
“The Fire Department doesn’t know for sure there’s nobody in building,” Bloomberg said.
“You just can’t let a fire go out of control – you can damage the structural integrity of the building. You could, in this case, release contaminants into the air. It would appear that the chiefs believe they acted appropriately in assigning the right number of companies and sending them in and following their procedures.”
More than 150 people flocked to a Community Board 1 meeting last night demanding answers about the blaze debacle.
LMDC Chairman Avis Schick told angry residents that Bovis and the city, state and federal governments were responsible for overseeing 15 safety measures at the site.
That only served to incense Sally Regenhard, who lost her firefighter son, Christian, on 9/11.
“I think it’s despicable that all these people failed in their job,” she said.
Schick responded, “I can’t go back in time and make them work better right now. Something went wrong, and we’re going to find out [what].”
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano, John Mazor, Austin Fenner, Samuel Goldsmith and Tatiana Deligiannakis