Inspector arrested after crane’s fall

A building inspector has been arrested after allegedly filing a false inspection of the crane that collapsed last week in Manhattan, city officials said Thursday.

Edward J. Marquette, 46, an inspector at the Department of Buildings’ Division of Cranes and Derricks, allegedly lied about performing an inspection March 4 of the crane, which collapsed and killed seven people. He had been assigned to check it after a neighborhood resident complained that the crane did not appear to be properly braced to the building.

“According to our investigation, Marquette made false statements on his route sheet indicating that he had inspected the crane. He has admitted to DOI that he did not inspect the crane on March 4,” Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the Department of Investigation, told reporters at the site of the disaster.

But the Department of Buildings told reporters that even if the inspection had been conducted, it probably would not have prevented the horrific accident.

“We think it’s highly unlikely that the lack of this inspection caused or was remotely associated with the accident,” said Patricia Lancaster, buildings commissioner.

“We believe at this time that the accident was caused during the jumping operation by mechanical failure or human error.”

Lancaster said that the crane and its ties were built according to their approved plan, and the pieces involved in the “jumping” operation underway when the crane collapsed were not on site March 4.

All pieces of equipment have now been removed to protective custody to be inspected by forensic engineers, she said.

Lancaster said that she had ordered re-inspections of all of Marquette’s work over the last six months and that the Department of Investigation would do a full audit of all inspections and the entire Division of Cranes and Derricks, since it was important to make systems transparent to the public and have a “zero-tolerance policy towards corruption.”

“Today I suspended Marquette. We will not tolerate this kind of behavior at the Department of Buildings,” she said.

Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joe Bruno said that residents of nine of 18 evacuated buildings in the area had been allowed to return to their homes.