Michael A. Hrynenko, Jr., a key figure in the Second Avenue gas explosion investigation, died on Aug. 25. He was 31, according to an obituary posted Aug. 27
at the Pizzi Funeral Home website.
A cause of death has not been disclosed for Hrynenko, who was also called Mischou.
He was the son of Maria Hrynenko, the landlord of 119 and 121 Second Ave., two of the three buildings destroyed by the deadly blast
on March 26, 2015. He lived on Seventh Street before moving to Rockland County in 2014, according to
published reports. (His father, Michael, owned
the Kiev Restaurant on Second Avenue and Seventh Street. He died in 2004.)
In February 2016, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance's office charged Maria and Michael Jr. along with contractor Dilber Kukic and plumber Jerry Ioannidis with manslaughter in the second degree, criminally negligent homicide and assault in the second degree, among other charges. (The final defendant, licensed plumber Andrew Trombettas, was charged with offering a false instrument, for allegedly lending his name and license number to paperwork.)
The five were accused of installing an illegal gas system, which they hid from inspectors, at No. 119 and 121. All five pleaded not guilty.
In announcing the charges in February 2016, Vance singled out Michael Hrynenko, who served as a building manager, and Kukic for their actions on March 26 at 121 Second Ave., the site of the restaurant Sushi Park.
As the
Post reported at the time:
The two were caught on building surveillance video the day of the deadly blast and fire responding to a fumes complaint from the ground-floor sushi restaurant, then quickly running to fiddle with their hidden basement gas set-up — literally sprinting through the restaurant without warning a single patron, officials allege.
Moments later, restaurant-goer Nicholas Figueroa, 23, and restaurant worker Moises Lucon, 26, were fatally engulfed in the blast, which also injured two dozen others, among them Kukic and Michael Jr.
The criminal case has yet to go to trial while the multiple civil actions are still making their way through the courts.
To date, Maria Hrynenko and her companies have
reportedly been hit with 28 lawsuits.
In June, Hrynenko filed a lawsuit, claiming that her management company was "careless and reckless" in its work. In the spring of 2015, as investigators focused on her actions, a lawyer for Hrynenko said that Con Edison bore responsibility for not shutting off the gas during the visit to the property earlier that day.
"Maria would not have sent her son in there if she knew the building was going to explode," the lawyer, Thomas M. Curtis, said in 2015, according to
The New York Times.
The Hrynenkos were expected to appear on Sept. 12 in New York Supreme Court in front of Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr., per court records.
Updated 12:24 p.m.
Giovanni shared this
link from the
Orangetown Daily Voice from February:
A Sparkill man accused of drunkenly crashing his car and failing several field sobriety tests immediately after is facing a felony count of driving while intoxicated, according to police.
Michael Hrynenko, 31, was taken into custody about 4:50 p.m. Monday after officers responded to a reported one-car crash in a parking lot off Route 303, according to Orangetown police.
According to authorities, Hrynenko was found behind the wheel of the crashed car and appeared to be drunk. He submitted to several field sobriety tests at the scene, which he's accused of failing, according to police.
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Read the previous coverage here.
