5 Liberal Democrats Arrested in Connection With East Village Gas Explosion

[De Blasio's New York]

The police arrested five people and charged four of them with
involuntary manslaughter on Thursday in connection with a deadly
gas explosion that rocked the East Village in Manhattan last
spring, killing two men, injuring scores more and forcing
hundreds of people from their homes.

The powerful blast at 121 Second Avenue in March reduced three
buildings to rubble, raised concerns about the state of New York
City’s aging infrastructure and highlighted the problems of
people possibly tapping into gas lines in ways that could be
dangerous.

Speaking at a news conference, the Manhattan district attorney,
Cyrus Vance Jr., said that with construction taking place across
the city at a “breakneck speed” the “financial incentives to
take shortcuts has never been stronger.”

The deadly East Village explosion, he said, was the direct
result of a landlord hungry to cash in on soaring rents at the
expense of doing the proper work to ensure the safety of both
the residents in the building and the surrounding neighborhood.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement, said the defendants
“showed a blatant and callous disregard for human life.”

“We are heartened that today these defendants will be brought to
justice and forced to answer for their criminal actions,” he
said.

The four people charged with involuntary manslaughter are Dilber
Kukic, a contractor; Athanasios Ioannidis, an unlicensed
plumber; Maria Hrynenko, the owner of the building; and her son,
Michael Hrynenko Jr.

The fifth person taken into custody, Andrew Trombettas, faced
lesser charges for supplying his master license to Mr. Ioannidis.

In court documents and at the news conference, prosecutors
outlined a scheme by all five of the defendants to illegally tap
into a gas line meant for a ground-floor restaurant, on more
than one occasion, and use it to supply recently renovated
apartments in the floors above — where the average rent was
$6,000 per month.

Mr. Vance said that Mr. Kukic was hired by the building’s owner
to renovate the apartments in the six-story building in 2013.
The work was completed in 2014 but the utility company
Consolidated Edison did not approve the gas lines for the
apartments.

The defendants, according to prosecutors, decided to create
their own illegal gas link.

In August 2014, Con Edison workers responding to calls from
people smelling gas visited the property and discovered that a
utility line intended only for the ground-floor restaurant,
Sushi Park, had been tapped to provide gas to the residential
apartments.

Con Edison shut off all gas to that building on Aug. 6 and
restored the service on Aug. 15, after the landlord had taken
away the tapping apparatus.

However, according to prosecutors, the defendants devised a way
to continue to illegally tap into the gas line of the
neighboring building, 119 Second Avenue, which was also owned by
Ms. Hrynenko, to feed the apartments.

“The defendants constructed another illegal unsafe gas delivery
system by installing a series of pipes and valves connecting the
apartments in 121 Second Avenue to an uncapped, commercial-grade
gas meter in the adjacent, vacant property,” according to the
indictment.

The system was set up in the back of the building’s basement —
behind locked doors, hidden from Con Edison, tenants and other
workers.

On the day of the explosion, Con Edison inspectors had returned
to the building for an inspection and found fault with plumbing
work in the basement but no signs of leaking gas.

After the inspectors left, according to law enforcement
officials, Mr. Kukic and Mr. Hrynenko turned the gas back on.
However, they did not know that valves opened during a pressure
test by Con Edison were never closed.

About a half-hour after they left, the manager of the restaurant
called Ms. Hrynenko, saying he smelled gas.

Soon after he made that call, the explosion rocked the
neighborhood and fire raged through the East Village
neighborhood. Residents jumped from fire escapes and made
desperate attempts to help one another get to safety. Two people
inside the sushi restaurant were killed: Moises Ismael Locon
Yac, 27, a busboy, and Nicholas Figueroa, 23, who had been on a
lunch date.

The fire commissioner, Daniel A. Nigro, said that the tragedy
was nearly even worse and that scores of firefighters narrowly
avoided losing their lives as the fire raged and the structure
collapsed.

“When greed guides the decisions and respect for human life
doesn’t, this is the result,” he said.

Lawyers for the defendants, who were expected to be arraigned
later Thursday, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Ms. Hrynenko inherited the building from her husband, Michael,
who had been the owner of the well-known Kiev diner before his
death in 2004.

After the explosion, as investigators focused on the actions of
the landlord, a lawyer for Ms. Hrynenko said that Con Edison
bore responsibility for not shutting off the gas during the
visit to the property earlier that day.

“Maria would not have sent her son in there if she knew the
building was going to explode,” the lawyer, Thomas M. Curtis,
said last spring.

“I think Con Ed is really culpable here for not shutting off the
gas,” the lawyer said. “They could have shut off the main valve.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/nyregion/5-arrested-in-
connection-with-east-village-gas-explosion.html?_r=0