AG Lines Up Grand Jury in Dig Manslaughter Probe [State Passes $20M Big D Audit Bill]

Boston Herald.Com ^ | Thursday, August 31, 2006 | Casey Ross

[fight_truth_decay]

Attorney General Tom Reilly is seeking a special grand jury to grill more than a dozen key witnesses in the Big Dig manslaughter probe, moving swiftly after documents revealed widespread knowledge of ceiling problems in the tunnel where Milena Del Valle was killed, a law enforcment source said.

The grand jury, expected to be convened Oct. 3, will hear evidence for six months as investigators seek criminal indictments against officials involved in construction of the I-90 Seaport Connector Tunnel. Several key officials have already retained lawyers, the source said.

“Nothing we have seen to date takes us off the path of looking at reckless conduct,” said the source, referring to the legal threshold prosecutors must reach for a manslaughter conviction. “We’ve looked at hundreds of thousands (of documents), and we’re definitely moving to the next level.”

Reilly, facing a tight Democratic primary election for governor Sept. 19, launched a criminal probe hours after the tunnel ceiling collapsed July 10 and killed Del Valle, 38, who was traveling to Logan Airport with her husband to pick up relatives.

The source said a parallel civil investigation into the $14.6 billion Big Dig is examining whether officials’ decisions during tunnel construction amounted to gross negligence, a finding that would shatter liability protections held by contractors.

Bechtel/ Parsons Brinckerhoff, the firm responsible for design and construction oversight, has a $150 million cap on potential liability, including protections against paying for lost toll revenue and other expenses due to tunnel closures. However, contract language negates those protections if the joint venture is found to have been grossly negligent.

A B/PB spokesman declined comment on the investigation, except to say the firm is “cooperating fully” with Reilly’s probe.

Legal observers say proving either gross negligence or recklessness will be extremely difficult because prosecutors must show that officials should have known the tunnel’s condition put Milena Del Valle in grave danger. “As long as reasonable minds can differ on whether the epoxy could hold, then it’s going to be very hard to prove,” Boston College law professor Robert Bloom said.

Reilly’s office subpoenaed documents from 16 different firms and recently completed a review of 245,000 construction records that revealed problems with epoxy ceiling supports as far back as 1999. The source said investigators are seeking to compel testimony from at least 12 construction officials, and that FBI agents and state troopers are well into the process of conducting informal interviews.

Reilly also has solicited help from leading academics, including Ronald A. Cook, a University of Florida professor considered the foremost expert in epoxy anchoring systems. Cook and others are conducting forensic tests on the tunnel’s epoxy and concrete, and suspending heavy weights from epoxy bolts to see if they give way.

[fight_truth_decay]

Boston taxpayers have already footed a whopping $700,000 in police overtime bill for cops directing traffic around Big Dig tunnel detours, and that’s before next week’s back-to-school gridlock takes its toll, according to Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Plus, city officials plan to add an additional 25 school buses in South Boston, East Boston and Charlestown to offset the impact of the closures. City officials are hoping to be reimbursed by the state, which passed a bill for $20 million for an audit of the Big D. None of this money has been earmarked for costs sustained by Boston.

[razorback-bert]

suspending heavy weights from epoxy bolts to see if they give way.

Gee, you would think they did this test before building.

[xarmydog]

I'm a fan of JB Weld,but it does have it's limits.