Crane owner cleared in deadly '08 collapse

A construction crane owner was acquitted of manslaughter and all other charges Thursday in the May 2008 collapse of a 200-foot-tall rig that snapped apart, killed two workers and fueled concerns about crane safety.

James Lomma sat expressionless and looking frozen as a judge announced his verdict in the only criminal trial stemming from the accident on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Lomma chose not to have a jury in the two-month trial.

The slain workers' relatives shook their heads as Lomma and his two companies were acquitted. They and their lawyers called the verdict an injustice and an alarming signal for the safety of those who work and live around cranes.

Lomma's lawyers had said the case misconstrued an accident as a crime and wrongly blamed him for it. One of them, Paul Shechtman, called the outcome "a bittersweet day because it remains true that two young men were killed in a crane accident." Shechtman also represented Lomma's companies. The attorney who represented Lomma, Andrew M. Lankler, declined to comment.

Prosecutors said the crane fell because Lomma had gotten a bargain-basement welding job to repair a crucial component.

The case marked Manhattan prosecutors' second try at holding someone criminally responsible for two deadly crane collapses that came within two months of each other in 2008. Together, the fallen cranes killed nine people and spurred new safety measures in New York and in some other cities -- scrutiny recently renewed after another Manhattan crane collapse killed a worker this month.

"Although we are disappointed with the judge's verdict, each case we have brought in this area has put increased scrutiny on the construction industry . . . ," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said.

The crane was starting work on the 14th floor of what was to be a 32-story apartment building when the top portions of the rig came off, crashed into a building across the street and plummeted to the ground. The crane operator, Donald C. Leo, 30, died. Ramadan Kurtaj, 27, a sewer company employee who was working on the ground, was pulled from the wreckage and died at a hospital.