Reilly says neglect with tunnel was criminal

Declaring that a fatal tunnel ceiling collapse in Boston last summer was "a crime," Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said yesterday that his office's investigation into the July 10 death of Milena Del Valle has convinced him that people and companies connected with the tunnel's construction should face manslaughter charges.

Reilly said the investigation, including a review of 400,000 pages of construction documents, suggests that the design and construction of the tunnel ceiling in the Interstate 90 connector were so reckless as to be criminal, a belief Reilly said he has had since first seeing the Del Valle family's flattened car.

He said that project managers overseeing ceiling construction in 1999 knew that the bolts holding up the ceiling sometimes slipped out unexpectedly and that they pressed ahead with construction anyway. Likewise, he said, managers knew there were problems with the training of some workers putting up the ceiling, but they did not double-check their work. He also said the ceiling design -- held up by epoxy bolts that essentially are super-glued to the tunnel roof -- was questionable and illegal in some states today.

"They knew enough at some point to stop it, and they didn't do it," Reilly said during an afternoon press conference, referring to managers from Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the joint venture that oversaw the Big Dig project, and Modern Continental Construction Co., the firm that built the ceiling.

"The clock was ticking," he said. "The fuse was lit. It was just a matter of time" before the ceiling collapsed.

"It is clear to me now that they didn't do it right, and the consequences were grave," Reilly said.

At his request, a special grand jury has been hearing witnesses since last month, and Reilly has not asked the grand jury to indict anyone.

He said he would first seek to recover the state's financial damages due to the accident, which has cost at least $30 million in tunnel repair and investigation costs while causing headaches for drivers. The tunnel, a major route to Logan International Airport, has been partially closed for more than four months.

Reilly announced plans to file a civil lawsuit against 15 companies connected with the tunnel ceiling project, including Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff. He declined to say how much money he wants from the lawsuit -- expected to be filed in Suffolk Superior Court today instead of yesterday, as his staff had expected -- but a state official familiar with the case said he expected damages to exceed $150 million.

Normally, prosecutors wait for criminal cases to be concluded before filing a civil lawsuit, but Reilly said he didn't want to wait because of a requirement in state law that lawsuits over faulty construction be filed within six years of the project's completion. In the connector tunnel, a single ramp opened to the public on Nov. 29, 2000, making the sixth anniversary tomorrow. "I'm not personally sure that the opening of a ramp triggers it, but I am not taking any chances," Reilly said.

Initially, Reilly planned to sue seven companies in addition to Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, but by yesterday the list of defendants had grown as Reilly added a bolt-testing company, consulting engineers, and several insurance companies that had policies with Modern Continental. All the firms are charged with negligence, while Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and Modern are accused of "gross negligence," a more serious charge.

Yesterday, most of the defendants, including Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and Modern Continental, declined to comment.

Some defendants expressed surprise at being included in the lawsuit. For instance, officials at Renner Colony LLC, a bolt supply company in Plymouth, said they never supplied anything to the Big Dig, but state officials said they were included because the firm's corporate predecessor, Newman Renner Colony, was a supplier. Similarly, officials at Sigma Engineering International of Rhode Island said they were involved in the project only briefly as consultants and had no role in design or construction of the flawed ceiling.

But a spokesman for Reilly said decisions about defendants were based on a review of not only who was involved directly in design and construction, but also the companies that consulted and provided financial support, such as the insurance companies that underwrote the construction bond for Modern Continental.

Reilly has said since hours after the accident that he would pursue a criminal investigation that could lead to a charge of negligent homicide. During the first two weeks after the crash, he went to the scene virtually every day.

"What I saw was a crime. It will be up to the grand jury to determine if it is," he said yesterday. Reilly said he inspected the 20 bolts that popped out in the accident and saw signs that the epoxy was applied incorrectly.

At the news conference, Reilly rejected the argument that the state is partially responsible for the tunnel ceiling collapse, given that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority hired Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff to manage the $14.6 billion Big Dig project and that state officials signed off on most of the important decisions.

But Reilly said the Turnpike Authority couldn't be expected to second-guess the expertise of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and the other major companies involved.

"You hire a company to build a house for you. They put the ceiling up and it falls down, and suddenly it's your fault?" he said.

Scott Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com.