A company responsible for oversight at the Manhattan building project now under investigation for structural failures was founded by \u2014 and has remained closely entangled with \u2014 a former city official who resigned in disgrace and was later convicted of bribery, records and interviews show.<\/p>\n
The former official, Ronald Lattanzio, served as an assistant commissioner at the Buildings Department in the 1980s before resigning amid accusations that he and his co-workers threw cocaine-fueled parties<\/a> in his office.<\/p>\n Later, in the private sector, he pleaded guilty to bribery in 1998<\/a> and became a cooperating witness, testifying at a corruption trial in 2001 that he gave gifts to a city councilman and held fund-raisers for him. In exchange, Mr. Lattanzio told the jury, the councilman made phone calls on his behalf, \u201cgetting things to move forward\u201d in the city bureaucracy.<\/p>\n At the Midtown site, at 235 East 42nd Street, the company Mr. Lattanzio created, Domani Inspection Services, was tasked with ensuring that structural alterations and other major work were carried out correctly as contractors transformed the building from office space into apartments.<\/p>\n The Manhattan district attorney and the city\u2019s Department of Investigation have opened a preliminary criminal inquiry<\/a> into what caused columns inside the building to buckle last week in an incident that caused panic and mass evacuations. Spokeswomen for both agencies declined to comment.<\/p>\n After examining structural drawings and photographs, engineers not involved with the project told The New York Times that two columns that failed on the building\u2019s 21st floor did not appear to be properly reinforced<\/a> with steel plates. A representative of GACE Consulting Engineers, the structural engineer on the project, said its drawings did call for the columns to be given additional support but the work had not been done.<\/p>\n It was not clear whether any of the work inspected by Domani or performed by subcontractors on the project led to the structural failures, or whether any company is a focus of the criminal inquiry.<\/p>\n Mr. Lattanzio did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for Domani, Diane Cahill, said the business has been owned by its current president, Matthew Caruso, since 2012, and she did not respond to questions about whether Mr. Lattanzio has maintained any role there.<\/p>\n After what happened on East 42nd Street, the Buildings Department began carrying out safety inspections<\/a> of construction projects across the city on sites where firms working on the Midtown conversion were also operating.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are looking into every entity and stakeholder associated with the project,\u201d said Andrew Rudansky, a buildings department spokesman.<\/p>\n And as investigators try to determine what went wrong on East 42nd Street, the backgrounds and affiliations of the companies hired for the project are coming into sharper focus.<\/p>\n The leading developer, MetroLoft, is among the most prolific converters of office-to-residential space in New York City. Its founder, Nathan Berman<\/a>, has been accused of shoddy work at a luxury condominium conversion in Lower Manhattan that has attracted celebrity buyers including Justin Timberlake, Harry Styles and Jennifer Lawrence, where residents claimed in a still-pending lawsuit that construction defects caused leaks, loose bricks and serious safety issues.<\/p>\n Mr. Berman has also had his own brush with scandal. Decades ago, successive state and federal investigations into former New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik revealed that Mr. Berman had given Mr. Kerik $28,000 to help him buy a Bronx apartment.<\/p>\n In grand jury testimony at the time, Mr. Berman said it was a personal loan to a friend. But the arrangement involved no loan documents or interest and little discussion of repayment. The funds were provided in five separate checks made out to Mr. Kerik\u2019s wife, and he only repaid the loan several years later, after it became clear that he was under investigation.<\/p>\n Days before Mr. Kerik left office, he appointed Mr. Berman as an honorary police commissioner and bestowed upon him a gold shield.<\/p>\n A spokesman for MetroLoft declined to answer questions regarding Mr. Berman\u2019s past or whether he knew of Mr. Lattanzio\u2019s connection to Domani.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to work closely with the Department of Buildings, and our focus remains on ensuring the site remains safe as we complete the work necessary to move forward with the successful completion of the project,\u201d said the spokesman, James Yolles, in a statement. <\/p>\n Another company that did demolition work on the East 42nd Street site, Northeast Service Interiors LLC, was one of 26 firms and 24 people indicted in 2023 in a sweeping construction industry kickback scheme. The company was charged with grand larceny and commercial bribery and resolved the case with a deferred prosecution agreement.<\/p>\n A lawyer for Northeast declined to comment.<\/p>\n A fourth firm connected to the conversion project<\/a>, Gotham Drywall, has been accused by labor leaders<\/a> of providing \u201csubstandard pay and benefits\u201d to workers, including in at least seven federal lawsuits over the past seven years. Six of the suits were settled; the other is pending.<\/p>\n A man who answered the phone at Gotham but did not give his name said he had no comment on the buckled columns on East 42nd Street. He said on Tuesday afternoon that \u201call of the alleged claims\u201d against Gotham had been made for more than a decade, and were \u201cunfounded and untrue.\u201d Asked if Gotham had ever been present at the site, he hung up.<\/p>\n But none of the companies appeared to have a background quite like Domani\u2019s.<\/p>\n Its founder, Mr. Lattanzio, had a long history of being accused of wrongdoing both while inside and outside the Buildings Department.<\/p>\n He was 29 when he left the agency in 1986 amid allegations of the office drug parties, and he went to work as an expediter \u2014 a consultant who helped clients get projects approved by the city.<\/p>\n About a decade later, he was arrested and charged with tampering with evidence<\/a> as part of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office into corruption in the construction and real estate industries.<\/p>\n He wore a wire on behalf of investigators and served as a star witness in a 2001 trial exposing corruption in the Department of Buildings.<\/p>\n A Daily News article during the trial said Mr. Lattanzio testified that on more than 50 occasions he illegally used an engineer\u2019s stamp to file applications for permits and other buildings department approvals for construction. Despite his criminal convictions, he did not receive a jail sentence because of his cooperation.<\/p>\n Years later, in 2008, he filed paperwork to form Domani Inspection Services, a private special inspection agency licensed by the city and required by the building code to ensure contractors perform specific tasks correctly.<\/p>\n And although Ms. Cahill said that Mr. Caruso bought Domani in 2012, public records show that Mr. Lattanzio has maintained close ties to both Mr. Caruso and the inspection firm.<\/p>\n He and Mr. Caruso both served together as officers of several companies in New York and Florida, including a firm called Golden Glow Services, which was in operation until 2021, records show.<\/p>\n In a New Jersey campaign contribution in 2023, Mr. Lattanzio listed his occupation as \u201cmanagement\/administrator\/executive\u201d at Domani Consulting, a Lynbrook, N.Y., expediting business located steps from the offices of Domani Inspections.<\/p>\n And he has been accused in lawsuits of keeping a hand in the operations of the inspections company, which the firm\u2019s lawyers have denied.<\/p>\n Last year, a property owner sued a number of firms it said were tied to Mr. Lattanzio<\/a>, alleging breach of contract that led to costly delays on a construction project.<\/p>\n Other lawsuits said Domani and related companies described themselves to potential clients as \u201cone-stop shopping\u201d offering a variety of services under the umbrella of yet another firm, Construction Realty Safety Group.<\/p>\n On his LinkedIn page, Mr. Lattanzio lists himself as founder of that company, and says he is currently \u201cfreelance\u201d for the firm. The company\u2019s website identifies Mr. Caruso as its president.<\/p>\n Samuel Schwartz, a former Department of Transportation official who met Mr. Lattanzio decades ago, said that Mr. Lattanzio\u2019s familiarity with the city\u2019s construction industry, a complex labyrinth even for insiders, has helped Mr. Lattanzio stay connected over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can find someone that can get through the process, that\u2019s like gold,\u201d Mr. Schwartz said. \u201cAnd you probably don\u2019t ask how.\u201d<\/p>\n And Mr. Lattanzio in recent years has had another connection to Domani Inspections: a business he controlled was its landlord. Property records show that a company that Mr. Lattanzio managed as recently as 2023, GGH Acquisitions LLC, owns the offices housing Domani Inspections on Long Island.<\/p>\n In the years since he created Domani Inspections, still another of Mr. Lattanzio\u2019s companies was accused of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Employees at the company, a construction firm called Trade Off, complained to the authorities of rampant sexual harassment, saying that supervisors offered to falsify time sheets and boost their pay in exchange for sex. The employees also reported inappropriate touching and forcible kissing by supervisors and receiving lewd photos and videos from colleagues. At least a dozen said they were fired when they complained.<\/p>\n In 2020, the company entered into an agreement<\/a> with the New York State Attorney General\u2019s office<\/a>, denying the allegations but agreeing to pay $1.5 million to the employees.<\/p>\n Mr. Lattanzio signed the agreement as Trade Off\u2019s president and owner. The company is no longer operating.<\/p>\n