By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A worker testified Thursday that his bosses ordered him to dismantle the emergency water supply at the former Deutsche Bank building prior to a deadly blaze that killed two firefighters.
Adolpho Ortiz, 30, who was an asbestos removal worker at the site, testified through a Spanish interpreter that he was told in December 2006 by supervisors Mitchel Alvo and Salvatore DePaola to cut the standpipe system to avoid having to clean it before a contamination inspection.
Alvo, 52, an abatement director for the Galt Corporation, DePaola, 56, a Galt foreman and site supervisor Jeffrey Melofchik, 49, are charged with manslaughter for allegedly causing the deaths of two firefighters who died of smoke inhalation on Aug. 18, 2007.
Firefighters Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33, were killed when they couldn't get water to douse the flames that engulfed 15 stories of the 41 floor building. The Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. had been badly damaged on 9/11 and was ordered dismantled by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
Ortiz testified he and his co-workers did a good job of cleaning contaminants off of the pipes in the basement of the building, but that the bosses were worried it was not good enough to pass the important review.
The water supply pipe, also known as a standpipe, was one of the more difficult parts of the basement to clean, Ortiz said. Not only was the pipe itself in need of a thorough scrubbing, but the metal rope hangers from which they were attached to the ceiling were also difficult to sanitize.
There were many pipes for many functions in the basement and it would have been easier, Ortiz said, to just remove them than it would have been to clean them.
"What do you remember [DePaola] telling you about removing some of the hangers on the standpipe?" Assistant District Attorney Brian Fields asked on direct examination.
Ortiz said the order had been passed to DePaola by Alvo "to make the cleaning go quickly."
He was also asked about "the manner in which [Alvo] spoke to the workers" on the morning that the standpipe hanger cutting was ordered.
"It looks like he was under pressure to get it quickly as possible [before] the inspection," Ortiz said.
Prosecutors have argued the supervisors knew what the standpipe was for and how vital it was to the safety of everyone working in the building. Ortiz also said he had spoken to DePaola, his immediate boss, about the standpipe, or emergency water supply, and the fact that needed to remain in place.
Lawyers for the defendants argue that dozens of inspectors failed to stop them from cutting the standpipe and the hangers that held it in place. The supervisors on trial are merely "scapegoats" in a much bigger picture, they argued.
Ortiz is expected to take the stand again when the trial resumes Monday.
