The Manhattan DA wants contractors and private safety inspectors working on the Deutsche Bank demolition to face homicide charges for the towering inferno that took the lives of two firefighters one year ago, The Post has learned.
The indictments – if handed up by a grand jury investigating the deadly blaze – would, for the first time, hold individuals criminally responsible for the deaths of Joseph Graffagnino and Bobby Beddia.
DA Robert Morgenthau’s prosecutors are eyeing officials with the demolition contractor, John Galt Corp., and inspectors the company hired over their failure to make sure demolition of the toxic building at 130 Liberty St. was done safely and in accordance with city rules, sources said.
Authorities have said there was a slew of safety problems at the building abutting Ground Zero, most glaringly a dismantled standpipe that left firefighters without water when they responded to the cigarette-sparked blaze.
“I’d like to see someone pay for what happened,” said Graffagnino’s widow, Linda, at a memorial at Engine 24/Ladder 5 yesterday honoring the firefighters on the anniversary of the blaze.
“A lot of people are to blame.”
Prosecutors are also eyeing money-laundering and racketeering charges.
Sources said Morgenthau – whose office reportedly might seek charges against the city itself over failures by public inspectors – is unhappy with the hiring last year of a high-powered criminal-defense firm to represent the city at a cost of $3 million and counting.
Morgenthau viewed that hiring as an indication that Mayor Bloomberg was more interested in protecting the city from liability than in trying to find out what led to the deaths and preventing a recurrence, sources said.
Morgenthau’s prosecutors also are angry at Bloomberg for jumping the gun by announcing new city safety standards for demolitions while the grand jury was still weighing charges, sources said.
Sources also said that “in Morgenthau’s eyes” top city lawyer Michael Cardozo “is not cooperating and [is] slowing down the process.”
Cardozo yesterday said that city agencies and officials “have cooperated fully” with Morgenthau’s inquiry and that the DA had “made it clear that the city could adopt forward-looking changes to enhance safety and encouraged the city to take such steps.”
Bloomberg said, “I don’t believe anybody deliberately did anything to make that building less safe.”
Daniel Castleman, Morganthau’s chief assistant, said the sources’ claims about the DA’s unhappiness with the city is “not accurate.”
“There is no animosity” between Morgenthau, Bloomberg and Cardozo,” Castleman said.
“We have absolutely no problem with the city.”Additional reporting by Irene Plagianos and Yoav Gonen