The widow of a firefighter killed in last year’s Kensington
factory fire has sued the building’s owners for wrongful death and negligence,
saying they ignored dangerous conditions that led to the inferno that left two
firefighters dead.
Diane Neary said the owners knew that “over 60 vandals,
vagrants, drug dealers, prostitutes, looters and other individuals” were
illegally living in the old Thomas Buck hosiery factory at York and Jasper
streets but did nothing to oust them, according to the lawsuit first filed
Sept. 26 in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.
Fire broke out in the blighted building
Robert Neary and Daniel Sweeney died when a
warehouse wall collapsed on them as they battled the flames.
on April 9, 2012, and fire Lt.
Named in the 35-page complaint are Yechial Lichtenstein and
Nahman Lichtenstein of Brooklyn, Toby Moskovits of Manhattan, and their
companies, York Street Property Development, Heritage Equity Partners and YML
Realty Inc.
At the time of the fire, the Lichtensteins and Moskovits
were known as “New Yorkers who collect and neglect,” because they owned 31
properties in Philadelphia, 24 of which were tax-delinquent, according to
Neary’s lawsuit. Besides owing more than $400,000 in back taxes and penalties,
the trio also had racked up more than $10,000 in unpaid water bills for their
properties, the lawsuit charges.
The city cited them three times between November 2011 and
March 2012 for failing to secure the property and began sheriff’s sale
proceedings in February 2012, according to the complaint.
Besides the city’s overtures, citizens and members of the
New Kensington Community Development Corporation repeatedly contacted the
owners to ask them to address the problems plaguing the property, according to
the lawsuit.
Before the fire, Yechial Lichtenstein toured the property in
an attempt to rent it and saw the dangerous conditions, including “holes from
the floor through the roof as well as combustible materials ... (and) bedding
and recently opened food containers” suggesting squatters lived there,
according to the lawsuit.
Looters regularly stripped the five-story factory of copper
wiring and other materials, creating dire fire risks in a structure that lacked
a sprinkler system, the lawsuit claims.
“They deliberately ignored those dangers, thereby risking a
catastrophe to the Kensington community as well as the firemen who responded to
the fire call,” Neary’s attorneys Thomas W. Sheridan and Christopher D.
Hinderliter wrote in the complaint.
Stephen A. Cozen, who represents the owners, and Neary’s
attorneys, and Sheridan and Hinderliter couldn’t immediately be reached for
comment.
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