The elevator company being probed in the freak death of ad exec Suzanne Hart did not follow basic rules governing elevator maintenance, sources tell DNAinfo. The website's well-connected investigative reporter Murray Weiss does not say where his sources are leaking from, but what they're telling him is damning: Transel Elevator Inc. did not inform the Buildings Department that it had finished work on the elevator that killed Hart—if it had, one final independent inspection would have been triggered by the a city inspector.
"In this case we believe the accident would have been prevented if the Department of Buildings had been notified as required," a source told Weiss. "The process you go through calls for certain precautions to be met, and for checks and balances to be done by the contractor and the city... Were they rushing the elevators back into service? Was it an inconvenience having it out of service? Is it time is money? We do not know."
A source also tells Weiss that the workers who had been doing maintenance on the elevator before Hart was killed have been "less than cooperative." The results of the exhaustive investigation will soon be turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office to determine if criminal charges are warranted. The company is also facing civil lawsuits filed by a passenger in the elevator who watched Hart die, and there are currently eight active cases against Transel, including a suit brought by a Union Square building super who fell down an elevator shaft when he stepped through doors that opened before the elevator arrived.
