Wrongful death lawsuit filed by estates of Second Street fire victims

One of the deadliest fires in Riverhead history is the subject of a lawsuit against the town and the landlord of a private, three-story home that was destroyed in November 2021 when a massive blaze trapped and killed five family members living in a third-floor apartment.

The complaint, filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court on behalf of two of the deceased, charges that landlord Carmela Cannella was “negligent, careless and reckless” in failing to renew rental permits for the apartments in the century-old home on East Second Street, and that the town failed to enforce violations and summonses issued weeks before the blaze.

The five family members, all natives of Guatemala, were later identified as Zonia Dinora Rivera Mendoza, her children Carlos Cifredo Penate Rivera, 25, and Andrea Isamar Gonzalez Rivera, 16, and her nephews, Duglass Edgardo Rivera Aguirre, 27, and Carlos Alberto Ramos Aguirre, 24. The estates of Ms. Mendoza and her son Carlos are named as plaintiffs in the complaint.Five other residents managed to escape, including tenants from two second-floor apartments and the building’s owner, Ms. Cannella, who lived on the first floor.

Five weeks before the fire, Riverhead Town Code Enforcement activity reports provided by the town attorney’s office indicate that the inspector contacted Ms. Cannella by phone on Oct. 13, 2021, to advise her that her rental permits had expired more than a year earlier. The report notes that Ms. Cannella said she had not received any renewal notices and “advised that right now she has no time because she is going to have a [medical] procedure” the following month.

Code enforcement officials issued three criminal summonses, citing Ms. Cannella for failure to secure rental permits for the apartments, department records show. 

Three weeks before the fire, a code enforcement official sought to serve Ms. Cannella with the summonses on three consecutive days in late October 2021, according to an affidavit, but never found her at her home. The summonses were ultimately affixed to the front door, and copies were mailed first-class to Ms. Cannella, according to code enforcement officials. Previous rental permits for 46 East Second St. had expired in the spring of 2020, officials said.

In addition to failing to secure rental permits, the complaint charges that Ms. Cannella failed to maintain working fire safety systems such as smoke detectors or fire alarms, and failed to provide a emergency exit from the building for third-floor residents in the event of a fire.

Renewing the rental permits would have required town fire code and other safety inspections that could have identified safety code violations, including the lack of working smoke detectors, the plaintiffs’ attorneys charge in the complaint.

Ed Burke Jr., an attorney for Ms. Cannella, countered those claims, saying his client was an “extremely diligent” and “hands-on” landlord who lived on the premises and hired help to maintain the property’s safety compliance standards.

Mr. Burke said Ms. Cannella had secured rental permits from the town for many years.

“When the last permit expired, Ms. Cannella made efforts to renew, however COVID restrictions at the time and medical surgery upon her thwarted her efforts.”

He declined to respond to a question about whether the house was equipped with working smoke detectors or fire alarms on the night of the fire.

The complaint claims that the Town of Riverhead failed to enforce the summonses and violations issued to Ms. Cannella the previous month, failed to “follow up” to ensure fire safety systems were in place and working in the home, and failed to ensure the building had an “appropriate means of … escape from the third floor in case of fire.”

Riverhead Town Attorney Erik Howard said the property was issued a letter of preexisting use in 2009, which exempted the building from that requirement.

A 36-page police report issued last spring detailed how the fire was started by a cigarette and quickly consumed the front portion of the house when a pretzel container used to dispose of cigarette butts ignited. The flames quickly spread to a nearby wicker couch on the porch, then ignited the wood shingles and ultimately the structure itself, the report said.

Last June, town officials passed a local law that reduced the length of rental permits from two years to one, which allows town safety inspectors to do annual safety compliance inspections on rental properties.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages. News of the lawsuit was first reported by RiverheadLOCAL.