By Zachary R. Dowdy
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The death toll of the nation's worst terrorist attack climbed by one yesterday when New York officials announced they had classified as a homicide the death of a Staten Island woman who inhaled toxic dust during the Sept. 11 strike on the World Trade Center - the first death the city has blamed on dust from the attack.

Felicia Dunn-Jones died Feb. 10, 2002, and the cause of her death was determined to be sarcoidosis with cardiac involvement, said the New York City medical examiner's office.

"The office of chief medical examiner has thus concluded that Mrs. Dunn-Jones' exposure to World Trade Center dust on 9/11/01 contributed to her death and it has been ruled a homicide," read a news release from the agency, which had previously refused to include her in the list of 9/11 victims.

It was the first time since January 2004 that officials had adjusted the death toll from the attacks on the World Trade Center. The count stands at 2,750, but the fact that Dunn-Jones' death is the first to be linked to the dust could spark a review of many other cases and could affect pending litigation, attorneys said.

Dunn-Jones, 42, was an attorney for the U.S. Department of Education who worked a block north of the World Trade Center. On the day of the attacks, she was trapped in a dust cloud caused by the collapse of the first Trade Center tower. Despite New York's position, the federal Victim Compensation Fund in 2004 awarded her family a death benefit of $2.6 million.

Yesterday's announcement came several months after two members of the New York congressional delegation began lobbying the medical examiner to have Dunn-Jones' name added to the city's list of 9/11 victims. Dunn-Jones had been excluded because there was not enough evidence linking her death to the attacks, city Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch had said.

"The city medical examiner has now accepted what thousands of people with 9/11-related illnesses and their doctors have long understood: that Ground Zero dust was harmful and even deadly," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-Manhattan). "Sadly, we have known that Felicia is not alone and that others have died from ailments caused by 9/11. I hope that the medical examiner is no longer in denial about the Trade Center dust."

Andrew Carboy, a Manhattan attorney whose firm represents 250 people, mainly firefighters, who are part of a class of about 8,000 plaintiffs with claims against the city for 9/11-related injuries, said the determination helps his case.

"It's just one more concession as to the causal link between World Trade Center contaminant exposure and injuries and death on the part of the city," Carboy said.