An engineering expert for accused killer crane rigger William Rapetti testified yesterday that the $50 straps, or “slings,” blamed for a horrific 2008 collapse on East 51st Street are far stronger than prosecutors contend in their homicide charges for the accident’s seven fatalities.
Prosecutors allege that Rapetti skimped on the slings — using old and frayed ones and only half the number recommended — in temporarily suspending an 11,000-pound metal brace 18 stories high up the rig’s mast.
But yesterday, Rapetti’s defense team screened video of their own sling stress tests for the Manhattan judge presiding over the three-week-old trial — video in which their own slings didn’t snap while suspending actual equipment from the crane that collapsed two years ago.
Defense lawyers instead blame the collapse not on the slings, but on the failure of six poorly-constructed I-beams used to stabilize the crane against the side of the building under construction.
They also fault the DOB’s decision to allow the massive, 200-foot-high rig to sit on the ground without being bolted down — something they say is nearly unheard of in the industry.
Rapetti had nothing to do with either the support beams or the decision not to bolt down the crane, his lawyers argue.
In the defense stress tests described in Manhattan Supreme Court, engineers took a 11,000-pound metal brace from the original crane and suspended it from a section of its mast using four slings similar to those rigged by Rapetti.
One of the four, 72-inch-long slings — an old, discolored one like the one prosecutors say snapped first, setting off a cascade of plummeting metal — was then cut away.
But the remaining three slings held, even though a corner of the 11,000-pound metal brace dropped by eight inches, said defense engineering expert Leo Lee.
“And it was hanging on three slings, and you could see there was no elongation, no sound [of stretching or ripping,], nothing that we can hear,” Lee said.
One of the three remaining slings did suffer a rip that extended almost half way through its width, but “it held without any other noticeable complaints.”
“One half-way ripped sling can still support 9,300 pounds, according to the DA’s own tests,” said defense lawyer Arthur Aidala.
The defense case hit a slight bump by the afternoon, when Lee, their star witness, admitted under cross-examination by prosecutor Deborah Hickey that he had left his job as the head of cranes and derricks for the DOB in 2001 after the department caught him with more than a dozen pornographic images on his work computer. Lee denied that he had it in for his former bosses.
The defense is expected to rest its case tomorrow, without putting Rapetti on the stand. On Thursday, both sides will travel to a police yard in Red Hook, Brooklyn, so that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Roger Hayes can view the support beams, brace, mast section and other pieces of equipment in person.
Prosecutors have yet to say if they will present a rebuttal case. Rapetti has opted to go to trial without a jury, leaving a decision on his guilt or innocence to the judge alone. He faces up to 15 years prison if convicted.