By Daniel Edward Rosen
Newsday (New York)
NEW YORK — Lt. Curtis Meyran had little option when he and five fellow New York City firefighters found themselves trapped in a fourth-floor Bronx apartment building engulfed in flames — they would either have to jump or possibly be burned to death, a prosecutor said yesterday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx.
His widow, Jeanette Meyran of St. James, sobbed through her hands as the recording of a January 2005 radio exchange between Meyran and other firefighters on the scene echoed through the courtroom.
Building tenants Caridad Coste and Rafael Castillo, landlord Ceasar Rios and an attorney for the building’s owner stood trial yesterday on charges of second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment.
“We’re bailing out of here. Hurry up,” shouted a distressed voice on the radio recording played in the courtroom.
“That’s him,” Meyran told reporters sitting next to her, indicating her husband. Meyran and his men jumped 50 feet from an open window on the fourth floor, landing in an alleyway. Meyran, 46, of Malverne, and firefighter John Bellew, 37, of Pearl River, both died from their injuries, while four others suffered extensive injuries.
The case took so long to come to trial because of numerous pretrial motions that needed to be decided, attorneys said.
Bronx Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Glucksman placed the blame for the fire and the resulting fatalities on Castillo, 52, and Coste, who he said illegally subdivided their apartments to squeeze in more people. Glucksman said Coste put a wall up in place of an entrance to a living room, then charged $75 to $100 a week in rent for each room. Coste created what Glucksman called “a death trap.”
“Meyran and Bellew paid for that wall with their lives,” Glucksman said.
Castillo’s attorney, Lisa J. Pelosi of Manhattan, told jurors that many factors may have contributed to the circumstances that day. Frozen fire hydrants, low water pressure, and faulty radios and hoses, and extremely cold temperatures played a part, she said.
The attorney for Rios, David J. Goldstein of the Bronx, questioned whether the wall was the real cause of the two firefighters’ deaths.
“The fire was so intense that they couldn’t get to any other place other than where they were,” said Goldstein.
“If there’s a not-guilty verdict, he did die in vain, if they get away with this,” a visibly upset Jeanette Meyran said in the hallway. “If the walls weren’t there, they [Meyran and Bellew] would be here.”
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta has said the firefighters jumped from the window without knowing there was a fire escape — because one of the added walls blocked their view of it.
Castillo, Coste and Rios each face a maximum of 5 to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter.
Copyright 2009 Newsday, Inc.