Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Dad of Crane Collapse Victim Calls Company Owner 'Coward'

By DNAinfo Staff on February 22, 2012 12:13pm  | Updated on February 23, 2012 3:23pm

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The father of a crane operator who fell 140 feet to his death when the rig he worked on collapsed four years ago on the Upper East Side said the man accused of causing the tragedy is a "coward" who would not look him in the eye when he testified Wednesday.

"I was trying to look and make eye contact with him," Donald Leo said, referring to crane boss James Lomma, who was sitting feet away at the defense table, apparently not returning the gaze. 

"I think he's just a coward."

Leo, a retired firefighter, testified Wednesday he thought his 30-year-old son, also named Donald, was alive after the young man's body was pulled from a pile of debris. He had rushed to the construction site after hearing about the accident.

Crane operator Donald Leo, 30, fell 140 feet to his death when a faulty structure collapsed on May 30, 2008 at East 91st Street and First Avenue.
Crane operator Donald Leo, 30, fell 140 feet to his death when a faulty structure collapsed on May 30, 2008 at East 91st Street and First Avenue.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Shayna Jacobs

"Initially when I first viewed him it looked like his hands were shaking so I thought he was still breathing," the dad said.

With a photo of his son beside him on a screen, Leo told a judge he believed his son was being taken to an EMS van, but it quickly became clear he was dead.

"When they stopped wheeling him and didn't put him in a bus, that's when I knew," he testified during Lomma's trial on manslaughter charges stemming from the May 30, 2008 accident at East 91st Street and First Avenue, where a luxury high rise was under construction.

In opening statements, prosecutors described how Leo had held his son, crying, for 10 minutes at the scene. He was not asked to recall those moments Wednesday from the witness stand.

Leo, who also worked on cranes after retiring from the FDNY, said he received a call about the collapse while he was taking a coffee break at a different job site downtown near Bellevue Hospital on the morning of the tragedy.

He hopped a cab at First Avenue, but jumped out and began to run when the taxi hit traffic.

His son was engaged to be married three weeks later to a school social worker. The elder Donald Leo had actually filled in for his son at the job during his boy's bachelor party trip to Costa Rica. The dad operated the very same crane that buckled with his son in it's cab.

"There isn't a day that passes when [the father] doesn't wish it was him," Assistant District Attorney Eli Cherkasky said Tuesday.

Leo told reporters he wants justice for his son and no punishment other than jail will suffice.

Donald Leo Sr. , father of a crane operator who was killed in a collapse on the Upper East Side four years ago, leaves Manhattan Supreme Court.
Donald Leo Sr. , father of a crane operator who was killed in a collapse on the Upper East Side four years ago, leaves Manhattan Supreme Court.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Sonja Sharp

"As long as he goes to jail I'll be happy," Leo said.

Sewer worker Ramadan Kurtaj, 27, who was working on the ground level at the construction site, was also killed in the accident.

Lomma, 66, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted at his bench trial. He is charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other related crimes.

Prosecutors say he knowingly replaced a faulty part on the tower crane with a cheap piece from China in order to save money.

Lomma's attorneys have argued that it was misuse by workers at the job site that caused the crash.