City Inspector Arrested After Allegedly Faking Crane Paperwork
City inspector allegedly failed to visit the work site days before the collapse.
March 20, 2008— -- A New York City crane inspector has been arrested for allegedly falsifying paperwork to show that on the same day a caller complained of unsafe conditions at the Manhattan work site where a crane later collapsed and killed seven on East 51street, he investigated and found no evidence of unsafe conditions.
The inspector, instead of going to the site, allegedly faked the paperwork to indicate that he did investigate the complaint, city officials said.
After initially stating he had conducted an inspection, he later admitted to investigators that he had not, officials said.
Edward Marquette, 46, has been arrested and arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on felony charges of falsifying records and filing a false report. The $52,283-a-year city employee faces up to four years in prison.
Officials said it did not appear that Marquette's failure to inspect the site played a role in the crane's collapse on March 15 because the steel sections being used to extend the crane when it collapsed had not yet been put in place. Nonetheless, they found it troubling.
"Crane inspectors are entrusted by the city with ensuring that cranes are operated in a way that does not compromise the safety of construction workers or the public," Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn, who heads the city's Department of Investigations, said in a statement. "This inspector allegedly betrayed that trust at the most fundamental level by not doing an inspection assigned to him and then making a false record indicating that he did."
The first indications of Marquette's failure to investigate were raised in an interview with a retired contractor conducted in the aftermath of the collapse by the New York Daily News. During the interview, retired contractor Bruce Silberblatt showed the newspaper a copy of his March 4 complaint to the city's Buildings Department that the crane lacked required braces. He told the Daily News the Buildings Department "blew him off" after making a cursory check.
"As it went higher and higher, I got more and more concerned because I didn't see any more braces installed," Silberblatt told the Daily News. So he lodged a complaint.
"Crane does not appear to be braced to the building," read the report of Silberblatt's complaint. "Only tie backs on 5 or 6 floor but upper part which is 100 feet up is unsecured." That same day the department sent inspector Marquette to the site, according to city records.
Two days later, the agency ruled that no violations were warranted. "Crane is erected according to approved code," read a note on the Buildings Department Web site. Now that record appears to have been faked.
City officials say that Marquette admitted to the Department of Investigation that he did not inspect the crane, although he claimed that he had. He was suspended by officials at the Buildings Department, and reinspections were ordered of all the buildings inspected by Marquette.
City officials said they did not believe that Marquette's alleged failure to inspect was directly linked to the crane collapse because a more recent inspection on March 14 -- the day prior to the collapse -- was properly performed. The officials noted that the pieces of the crane, which were used to extend it upwards on March 15 and which were involved in the collapse were not on site on March 4, the date when Marquette was supposed to have made his investigation into the complaint about the bracing.
Investigators still believe the accident occurred during the "jumping" of the crane, which is when workers add tower sections to extend the crane upwards. They are still looking at either mechanical or human failure as a cause. "Based on the preliminary findings of the ongoing investigation, it is unlikely that a March 4th inspection would have prevented this horrific accident, which we continue to believe was caused by human or mechanical error during the crane jumping operation on March 15th. Regardless, Edward Marquette's behavior is reprehensible."
This post has been updated.