Judge dismisses felony counts against Ray Canario in Evergreen Court inspection case
NEW CITY − A Rockland County judge on Tuesday dismissed felony counts of falsely filing inspection reports against former Spring Valley Building Inspector Ray Canario, dealing the District Attorney's Office another blow in efforts to prosecute people resulting from the 2021 fatal adult home fire case.
Judge Kevin Russo had previously dismissed the prosecution's case for failure to prove intent to defraud against Wayne Ballard, the former Spring Valley chief building inspector and head of the Public Works Department.
Russo found prosecutors failed to prove Canario intended to defraud in filed reports of building department activities with New York state.
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Prosecutions getting shut out on convictions
The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday with witnesses called by Canario taking the stand.
Peter Walker, a spokesperson for Rockland District Attorney Thomas Walsh, said the DA would comment after Russo gives verdicts on the three misdemeanor counts. Canario's attorney, Stefanie Jordan, had asked Russo to dismiss all six charges after prosecutors Ryan Sweeney and Michael Dugandzic closed their case.
The judge's ruling Tuesday means the prosecution has so far failed to get a conviction following the investigation into the fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in March 2021. Firefighter Second Lt. Jared Lloyd, 35, and adult home resident Oliver Hueston, 79, died in the inferno at the Lafayette Street facility.
The District Attorney's Office had plea-bargained dismissal for two Evergreen Court employees, including the director of several facilities owned by the Schoenberger family. Denise Kerr, the director, had allowed two rabbis to cleanse the facility's kitchen and ovens with a blow torch system without proper permits.
The rabbis − Nathaniel Sommer and his son Aaron Sommer − face court on April 18 on their not-guilty pleas to manslaughter, negligent homicide, arson, assault and other felony charges. The Evergreen Court inferno erupted on March 22, 2021, several hours after the rabbis used a 20-pound blowtorch to cleanse the Evergreen Court ovens and kitchen for Passover.
Walsh has declined comment on the cases since a news conference to announce indictment charges. He declined to discuss if his office has offered Sommer a plea agreement.
Case against Canario
A grand jury indicted Canario on nine charges involving the filing of reports with the state. Russo earlier dismissed counts of filing false business records against Ballard and Canario.
When the non-jury trial started, Walsh's prosecutors told Russo the evidence will show that Canario knowingly made false statements in state reports from 2017 to 2019 concerning the village's tally of completed inspections and falsely reported how many inspections were done, including the Evergreen Court Home for Adults.
Jordan told Russo that the evidence would show Canario is a hard-working longtime volunteer firefighter who has dedicated himself to the people of Spring Valley.
She noted during her cross-examination of prosecution witnesses that there were reporting mistakes and the state made errors. But she said Canario did the best he could under the circumstances of lacking proper training and working in a dysfunctional department without direction and leadership.
The inspection reports centered on several years before the fatal fire, but the blaze kick-started the investigation into the Spring Valley Building Department. Canario, a former fire chief, battled the blaze with dozens of other volunteers who removed 112 people from the massive Lafayette Street building.
The prosecution provided the same witnesses in both cases against Canario and Ballard.
They included two state oversight officials with the New York State Department of State on the witness stand: code compliance specialist Ronald Stark and John Addario, the director of buildings, standards code. Other prosecution witnesses in the Ballard and Canario trials included former Spring Valley inspector Manny Carmona, now the chief Nyack inspector; investigator Martin Ancin; former village attorney Jeffrey Millman; and code enforcement officer Douglas Perry.
A theme across both trials was that Spring Valley's Building Department had been dysfunctional when it came to enforcing state fire and building codes.
Mayor Alan Simon, who took office in December 2021 and at times ran the building department, moved Canario from the Public Works Department to the building department. Simon had been behind suspending several inspectors − including Carmona, fire inspector Frank Youngman, and transferring out Chief Building Inspector Walter Booker, who had been suspended by Mayor Demeza Delhomme.
The state Department of State enforcement unit first assigned a monitor to watch and advise the village on administrative reporting, not inspections. The state also had assigned a monitor to the Ramapo Building Department.
The testimony also focused on the 1203 reports and discrepancies, as well as the Building Department leadership and for years the lack of enough trained personnel had made meeting inspection goals impossible. The state finally assigned the Rockland County government to take over the village's Building Department in November 2021. The county has been inspecting and prosecuting violations since February 2022.
Addario, the watchdog unit's leaders, has been criticized for not aggressively overseeing building department dysfunction despite complaints from local activists.
Under questioning from Jordan, Addario said despite the village's enforcement problems, he never referred Spring Valley inspectors for criminal investigation or suggested inspectors should be suspended or lose their certification.
The village filing system was a mess and its computer program failed.
"The computer system they had didn't get the job done," Addario said. "The existing database was corrupt."
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com. Twitter: @lohudlegal.
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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Judge dismisses Ray Canario felony counts in Evergreen Court case
