NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A now-retired mechanic was charged with criminally negligent homicide after failing to implement crucial safety features, resulting in a 2021 Bronx elevator fall that killed a co-worker, the district attorney said Tuesday.
Peter Milatz, 67, of Orange County, New York, was arraigned Tuesday and was granted supervised release. He is scheduled to appear in court again on June 8.
According to the investigation, the victim, Joseph Rosa, 25, an apprentice mechanic, was working with Milatz, a senior mechanic who has since retired, on the modernization of an elevator inside a six-story building located on 133rd Street East Clarke Place in Mount Eden on Feb. 18, 2021.
At the time of the incident, Milatz and Rosa were working on replacing the steel-wire ropes that ran between the elevator cabin and the elevator counterweight.
Milatz allegedly instructed Rosa to go to the pit at the bottom of the shaft while he worked on the sixth floor, where the elevator cabin was.
Investigators said Rosa secured the counterweight, a standard procedure, then used a small saw to cut through the ropes at Milatz’s instruction. The elevator cabin plunged down the shaft and crushed Rosa.
Milatz is accused of failing to comply with a procedure that required him to "hang" the elevator cabin, which suspends chains and/or engages the elevator's stop.
In addition, he allegedly removed a critical safety feature called the governor, which triggers the braking system on all elevators, two weeks earlier in order to replace it with a new one. Milatz allegedly proceeded to work on the elevator without the safety device because the replacement governor did not fit properly.
"A worker was fatally crushed by a free-falling elevator because his supervisor, an experienced mechanic, failed to follow the most basic safety protocols, as alleged in the indictment," said New York City Department of Investigations Commissioner Jocelyn Stauber in a statement. "This senseless tragedy was entirely preventable."
Related
Related
Related
