“It makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes our city dirty and noisy,” said neighborhood resident Olga, 78, who’s lived in the East Village for 33 years.
“There was one woman who was making pee-pee and caca by the bus stop. It was very dirty and disgusting. Nobody wanted to use the bus stop.”
The owner of an eatery across the street also said the situation appeared to be spiraling out of control.
“They started camping out there when the weather got warmer and recently it got bigger,” the restaurateur said.
“Some of them have mental issues. They drink a lot and fight with each other. They throw bottles.”
“He said that he would gladly give up his own life for the lives of the people who lost their lives,” Kukic’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo said.
MARIA HRYNENKO, D.O.B. 11/26/1959
Rockland, N.Y.
Convicted:
Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 counts
Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
Sentenced:
4-to-12 years in prison
ATHANASIOS “JERRY” IOANNIDIS, D.O.B. 6/15/1956
Queens
Convicted:
Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 count
Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 2 counts
Sentenced:
4-to-12 years in prison
DILBER KUKIC, D.O.B. 6/9/1975
Bronx
Convicted:
Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 count
Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
Sentenced:
4-to-12 years in prison
"What was it that made these three defendants circumvent all the rules they were aware of?" the lead prosecutor, Rachana Pathak, said in her closing remarks. "Money, money, money."
“What the defendants did, in a matter of speaking, was roll the dice with the lives of many people,” Obus told a packed courtroom. “The results, as we know, are catastrophic.”
Still, Obus said he was giving the defendants a break on their prison time because they were older and “did not intend to blow up the building.”
“It’s not enough. It’s a joke. What kind of justice did you give us? You didn’t give us no justice. It’s a slap in my son’s face.”
MARIA HRYNENKO, D.O.B. 11/26/1959
Rockland, N.Y.
Convicted:
• Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
• Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 counts
• Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
• Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
ATHANASIOS “JERRY” IOANNIDIS, D.O.B. 6/15/1956
Queens, N.Y.
Convicted:
• Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
• Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 count
• Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
• Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
• Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 2 counts
DILBER KUKIC, D.O.B. 6/9/1975
Bronx, N.Y.
Convicted:
• Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a class C felony, 2 counts
• Assault in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 9 count
• Assault in the Third Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts
• Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor, 1 count
Ms. Hrynenko who had taken over her husband’s housing stock after his death in 2004, hired Dilber Kukic, a general contractor, to renovate apartments at 121 Second Avenue in 2013. By the summer of the following year, Ms. Hrynenko had leased the apartments to 16 people, but Con Edison had not yet approved a new gas line.
Prosecutors said Ms. Hrynenko risked losing tenants and $24,000 in rent per month if she could not provide gas. That is when, prosecutors said, she devised a plan to siphon gas from Sushi Park, a ground-floor restaurant in the building to provide gas to the apartments above.
But, prosecutors said, the explosion in the East Village was the result of something else: a landlord’s greed.
“What was it that made these three defendants circumvent all the rules they were aware of?” the lead prosecutor, Rachana Pathak, said in her closing remarks this week. “Money, money, money.”
Jose Gomez, a cook at Sushi Park, said he had to crawl out from underneath a pile of debris. He said his eyes and ears are permanently damaged. A firefighter who had been injured while responding to the scene was forced to retire because of his injuries.
Randolph Clarke Jr., an assistant Manhattan district attorney, said the defendants “took a chance, they rolled the dice, and the cost was paid for by Mr. Figueroa and Mr. Locon and 13 others.”
In the days after the explosion, prosecutors said, Ms. Hrynenko did not tell investigators about the illegal gas line and she shredded nine garbage bags full of documents pertaining to her real estate business.
As construction and development continues to boom, today’s guilty verdict puts property owners, contractors, and managers on notice: my Office will pursue criminal charges against those who place expediency and financial gain over life and limb. I thank the jury and the tireless prosecutors in our storied Rackets Bureau for holding these defendants accountable for the tragic and preventable losses of Moises Locon and Nicholas Figueroa.
I also want to thank the Figueroa and Locon families, who demonstrated remarkable strength and resilience through the duration of this trial. While today’s result will not bring these young New Yorkers back, I hope the Figueroa and Locon families take a measure of comfort in knowing that this case will change the way that landlords and contractors do business in New York.
Under New York law, prosecutors will have to prove that Ms. Hrynenko, Mr. Kukic and Mr. Ioannidis were aware that they were acting recklessly, and disregarded the potential risk of death to others. Prosecutors would also have to show that the risks were not something that a reasonable person would have ignored.
“Being aware of a substantial risk would seem to be inconsistent with maintaining their property and obtaining tenants, making it challenging to prove that level of reckless intent,” said Kevin McCarthy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
Hrynenko’s lawyer said she hired people to do work and knows nothing about an illegal gas line.
Her attorney gave the first closing argument, saying prosecutors are missing evidence, including some piping and the main shut-off valve.
All three defense attorneys have argued the explosion happened in the kitchen of the sushi restaurant on the first floor, not the basement like prosecutors allege.
Family and friends of the defendants packed one side of the courtroom. On the other side were family members of those killed.
“I hope that the jury will decide these people’s fate in the right way, you know, that they all go to jail for what they did,” said Nixon Figueroa, whose son died in the explosion.
Supreme Court, New York County
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, (1-2 p.m. lunch break)
100 Centre St., Room 1536.
Judge Michael Obus is presiding
“There was a virtual bomb lurking beneath,” Assistant District Attorney Randolph Clarke Jr. told a jury during opening statements.
“All it took was 23 minutes to cause all this damage and destruction,” Mr. Clarke, the prosecutor, told the jury. He said the defendants’ actions were motivated by financial greed and a desire to rent the newly renovated apartments.
Lawyers for the defendants said their clients weren’t responsible for the blast.
“This is a tragic accident,” said Michael Burke, a lawyer for Ms. Hrynenko. He said his client was an inexperienced landlord who tried to do things right and hire the right people.
Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Kukic, said evidence suggested the fire could have started in the kitchen of Sushi Park and not in the adjacent basement. He said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove prosecutors’ theory of the case.
A lawyer for Mr. Ioannidis, Roger Blank, told the jury that Sushi Park had a history of gas issues in its kitchen.
[He] recalled how his wife waited nearly three agonizing days after the March 26, 2015, blast to learn that the body of their 23-year-old son was recovered from the rubble.
“That’s the day I died,” said the 56-year-old, choking up. “I have a picture of my son’s face in the moment when he’s flying through the air and the anguish that he had and the pain when he knew he wasn’t coming back…it broke my heart.”
A lawyer for Ms. Hrynenko did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Hrynenko did not tell detectives about the illegal gas line, prosecutors said, and she shredded nine garbage bags full of documents pertaining to her real estate business.
But legal experts and defense lawyers say that it is difficult to convince a jury that someone is guilty of manslaughter in cases where slipshod construction work has led to deaths.
Under New York law, prosecutors will have to prove that Ms. Hrynenko, Mr. Kukic and Mr. Ioannidis were aware that they were acting recklessly, and disregarded the potential risk of death to others. Prosecutors would also have to show that the risks were not something that a reasonable person would have ignored.
“Being aware of a substantial risk would seem to be inconsistent with maintaining their property and obtaining tenants, making it challenging to prove that level of reckless intent,” said Kevin McCarthy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
The defense is expected to argue that tampering was not the root cause of the explosion.
“I think the DA is going to try and show that there were all these irregularities regarding the gas piping,” said Kukic’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo. “None of that is what caused the gas to leak.”
Instead, he said, the gas leak came from the restaurant’s kitchen where workers heard a “hissing.”
“They smelled gas for months prior to the explosion. It was not a one-time thing,” Agnifilo said.
If the fire started in the kitchen, the defendants are expected to argue that couldn’t be blamed because their potential liability would have been isolated to basement operations.
“I don’t think the DA will ever really conclusively pinpoint what the problem was, where the gas came from,” Agnifilo [said].
