Greenpoint fire started by homeless man ... oops, no it wasn't

Greenpoint Warehouse Owners Plead Not Guilty To Property Neglect Charges
June 15, 2006

The owners of the Greenpoint warehouse complex that burned to the ground last month pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges they neglected the historic property.

Joshua Guttman and his son Jack were arraigned in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn Thursday morning.

Police officers are double checking the story of a homeless man they say admitted to accidentally starting the blaze. A contractor came forward saying Leszek Kuczera was working upstate the day of the fire, but police are sticking with their theory.

“We believe we have information and evidence that shows this is the individual responsible for the fire," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The historic warehouse complex went up in flames May 2nd. The massive fire raged for more than 24 hours, destroying seven buildings.

The Guttmans are due back in court in September and face up to $2 million in fines.

the court will decide, not the press, and i'm not fan of the cops, but fuck these drunk polish homeless assholes. i'm not no uptight yuppie homeowner, but these guys are a fucking disgrace. come check it out sometime, hurting: come to mccarren or mcgolrick at 8 am and see these assholes trashed out of their gourds, yelling at women and children, and tell me how much sympathy you have for them.

But don't you think it's equally possible, if not more likely, that a notoriously neglectful building owner might follow in the footsteps of hundreds of other developers, have his building torched to collect (especially since it was historic and couldn't be demolished), and then found someone to take the rap?

But even if Poles have three horns and feast on the flesh of toddlers, it's pretty irrelevant to whether or not Kuczera started this fire.

absolutely the landlord might be involved. but that doesn't necessarily count out this drunk dude's involvement!

in that vein i finally checked out one of the "zimne piwo" bars in the neighborhood two weeks ago. the guys in there were absolutely shattered at 2 p.m. i mean, like reeling drunk, the kind of drunk i planned on being 12 hours later that day. but they were fun drunks. none of them spoke english but the septegenarian bar matron was so pleased to see a bunch of young (or young-ish in my case) people in there she bought us all a round of okocim.

The wife's explanation of how Kuczera became a drunkard is a little ridiculous, but I'm not sure what bearing that has on the larger story.

Anyway, the plot thickens is all I'm trying to say.

Me/Article: Contractor claims Kuczera wasn't the one to start the fire
Me: This is fishy
Stencil: "come to mccarren or mcgolrick at 8 am and see these assholes trashed out of their gourds, yelling at women and children, and tell me how much sympathy you have for them."

???

hurting, again, come on down and spend a week dealing with these assholes (ie THE RATHER LARGE MALE POLISH HOMELESS POPULATION IN GREENPOINT THAT THE SAME POLICE I DON'T LIKE DON'T DO SHIT ABOUT), and we'll see how you feel afterwards.

If it makes you feel better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/nyregion/15fire.html

Investigation of Warehouse Fire Veers Upstate Over Alibi Claim

By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: June 15, 2006

The police said yesterday that they were investigating a claim that the suspect in the May 2 fire that destroyed a historic warehouse complex in Brooklyn was working at a camp more than 80 miles away on that date.

The suspect, Leszek Kuczera, 59, told investigators last week that he and another man started the fire at the Greenpoint Terminal Market while they were trying to melt the insulation from copper wire they had planned to sell for scrap, according to the police. The flames erupted into a spectacular 10-alarm blaze that burned for days. Mr. Kuczera is being held at Rikers Island.

But a mason in Pond Eddy, N.Y., about 85 miles northwest of the city, said that Mr. Kuczera was working for him from April 19 until May 11, helping to prepare a campground, and that he did not return to New York City during that time. The account of the mason, Zbigniew Sarna, 52, was first reported on Tuesday in the New York City Polish-language newspaper Nowy Dziennik.

"I said, 'This guy is not guilty because he's been here,' " Mr. Sarna said yesterday outside his home.

Investigators questioned Mr. Sarna at his home yesterday, he said. A lawyer for Mr. Kuczera at Legal Aid, Tom Cleary, said they were looking into the alibi as well.

The claim is contrary to those of witnesses in Greenpoint who said they saw Mr. Kuczera around the time of the fire, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday.

"We have detectives investigating that," he said. "They're upstate right now talking to the individual who apparently made that claim, but we have other information, other witnesses that are contrary to that statement, but we'll sort it out during the investigation."

But Mr. Sarna was adamant yesterday, even identifying a still television image of Mr. Kuczera when he was leaving a precinct house after his arrest. He said it was the same handyman who was among the men who answered his ad in a Polish newspaper. He said he picked them up on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint on April 19.

Mr. Kuczera's friends and brother described him as a chronic alcoholic who sold scrap metal to pay for vodka. But Mr. Sarna said Mr. Kuczera, a Polish immigrant who has been homeless in recent years, was sober upstate. "Not drinking here," he said.

Mr. Kuczera's criminal record includes convictions for possession of stolen property, petty larceny and possessing burglary tools. He was caught stealing from a bodega and once tried to break into a car. The landlord of the Greenpoint building that he had listed as his address said Mr. Kuczera begged him for a dollar two weeks before his arrest.

But Mr. Sarna described a worker who did not seem interested in payment. "He didn't ask for money, but I gave him $300," he said.

Mr. Kuczera's brother, Yurik Kuczera, 49, said he did not see Mr. Kuczera for several weeks around the time of the fire, and while the first he heard of the Pond Eddy alibi was this week, he said it could be true.

"Nobody would risk his own opinion and business for a homeless person, and he wouldn't say he would testify in a court if he didn't think it's true," he said yesterday, adding that other homeless people have told him that his brother was upstate when the fire broke out.

Jonathan Miller, Kareem Fahim and Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska contributed reporting for this article.

when i lived in wburg, ca. 1996, however, i had a beef with drunken hasids, who would shout at girls on the street and hang on to telephone poles to keep from falling over, it was disgraceful and a little frightening.

I can't parse this, too many double negatives

jaymc, the whirlaway, like most of nw chicago, was very polish, and not all that long ago.

dean, i hope you're never on my defense team.

s'ok, dean, i'll never be of the "caliber" as kenny boy, and i'm fine with it.

Maybe if you campaigned for it hard enough, it'd help your reputation in the Polish community recover from those remarks you made earlier.

sorry if anyone is offended, but that's the way i see it.

;_;

A: To yell at women and children.

Get out of my cab, you Serbian bastard!

NEW YORK --A homeless man arrested in the city's biggest fire in a decade will not be sent to prison. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Leszek Kuczera admitted to no crime in the 10-alarm blaze at a historic warehouse complex in Brooklyn. He will go to an alcohol-treatment program for about eight months.

"The defendant does need whatever support he can get," State Supreme Court Judge Abraham Gerges said in a Brooklyn courtroom.

Authorities said Kuczera, 60, accidentally sparked the May 2 fire while trying to burn insulation off scavenged copper wire so he could sell it as scrap.

The fire was the city's biggest blaze in a decade, except for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It sent up a plume of smoke visible for miles and took nearly 36 hours to douse.

It devastated several buildings, including part of the former Greenpoint Terminal Market, which preservationists had wanted to have designated as a landmark. It also leveled a building that was the world's largest rope factory in the late 19th century.

I had forgotten about this thread. I'm still pretty baffled by Stencil's reactions, especially considering this (from nytimes):

May 6, 2006
Arson Was Found at 4 of Warehouse Owner's Properties
By KAREEM FAHIM

There have been at least four deliberately set fires at properties linked to Joshua Guttman, the owner of a warehouse complex on the Brooklyn waterfront that burned to the ground this week in what Fire Department officials have called suspicious circumstances, according to records collected by fire marshals.

Details of the other fires, which date back to 1991, were not immediately available. It is not known if any of those crimes have been prosecuted. Mr. Guttman has never been charged with any arson-related crimes, his lawyer, Israel Goldberg, said.

"If you look at the kinds of buildings he owns, many of them are suited for rehabilitation," Mr. Goldberg said of his client, a real estate developer. "Many of them have people residing there, or homeless people and vagrants — people who are more prone to starting fires than other people," he said.

An analysis of city property records shows that Mr. Guttman, either on his own or through various property corporations linked to him, owns dozens of commercial and residential buildings in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Records provided by researchers in the Fire Department's Bureau of Fire Investigation revealed at least four arson fires, all in Brooklyn, on dates when Mr. Guttman's corporations held the deeds to the properties.

Investigators from the Fire and Police Departments, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are anxious to examine the remains of the historic warehouse complex in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that burned down during a ferocious 10-alarm fire this week. The fire burned for days and was battled by more than 400 firefighters.

The Greenpoint Terminal Market, as the complex is called, and the strip of waterfront where it sits were coveted by developers and preservationists. The complex included a former rope factory, part of 10 interconnected buildings that were lost in the fire. Last year, the area was rezoned from industrial to commercial, and the value of the complex, which Mr. Guttman bought in 2001 for about $25 million, skyrocketed.

Mr. Guttman, who through his lawyers has vigorously denied any wrongdoing, is cooperating with investigators, officials said. Indeed, the fire hurt his plans for the property, which he is hoping to develop into condominiums, the lawyers said.

Two fires took place within two months of each other in the summer of 1991, in a building at 627 Gates Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to Fire Department records. Residents vaguely recalled those fires, but said the building — which they believed was a church — had since been replaced by a two-story residential building.

In 1992, there was an arson fire in another of Mr. Guttman's buildings, at 1381 Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick, and in 1996, another at 140-142 Plymouth Street, a commercial building just a block from the East River in Dumbo.

Another Brooklyn property owned by Mr. Guttman, at 247 Water Street, burned in a four-alarm fire in 2004. While firefighters initially thought it was suspicious, the final cause was listed as "not ascertained," and officials said that workers using acetylene torches might have been responsible.

Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Guttman's lawyer, said that arson "would be out of character for him."

Investigators are waiting until the warehouse site is made safe before they start combing through the debris for forensic clues. In the meantime, they are examining surveillance footage taken from cameras nearby, and canvassing for potential witnesses, officials said.

Arson is among the most difficult crimes to investigate, in part because the crime is often committed by hired "torches" with little connection to the person who wants to burn the property. Besides having to knock down all the potential accidental explanations for a fire, investigators are left very few clues, in crimes that are often carried out late at night with only an accelerant and a lighter.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Happy Blitt, Nicholas Confessore, Alain de Laquérière and Colin Moynihan.

It's like the article was written by a bunch of also-rans from 19th-century novels.