The defense has argued that the missing standpipe was not the direct cause of the firefighters' deaths.
Asked by Mr. Melofchik's lawyer, Edward J. M. Little, why he had never brought up the issue of the missing standpipe to regulators, Mr. Ortiz said the workers were often ignored.
Numerous other inspectors — city, state and federal — who had much more training than his client never said the missing standpipe posed a safety issue, Mr. Pasacreta said.
If jurors find that the prosecution has not proven that the missing standpipe caused the firefighters' deaths, Mr. Little told jurors, "that's the end of the case, because there can be no crime where there's no cause".
Mr. Ortiz also testified that after work in the basement was finished, he went to work on some of the building's upper floors, and while working there, that he was not concerned that the missing standpipe presented a safety issue.
Summarizing their theories of what caused the deaths of two firefighters battling a blaze in the former Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan, two defense lawyers on Tuesday echoed what they said 10 weeks earlier during opening statements — that an artificially created smoke chamber, not a missing standpipe, was to blame.
Jurors said the prosecution had not definitively proved that Mr. Alvo and Mr. DePaola knew about the missing section of standpipe.
City, federal and state inspectors who examined the basement and had much more training than Mr. DePaola did not raise any safety issues regarding the missing section of standpipe, Mr. Pasacreta said.
The defense also said there was much blame to go around — from the Fire Department, which failed to conduct regular inspections on the building, to federal, state and local regulators, who did not raise any issues regarding the missing section of the standpipe.
Mr. Little argued not only that his client lacked the expertise to know that the standpipe was broken or that the missing section created a risk of death, but also that the firefighters would have died even if the standpipe had been in place.
