Testimony focuses around cell phone, damage in HTI fire trial

Feb. 24--Before 14-year-old Joe Phillips was killed in the HTI Recycling fire on Aug. 10 of last year, he left a desperate voicemail on the phone of his friend who accompanied him that day, saying he was trapped in the building and afraid he was about to die.

The 14-year-old friend, who is now standing trial in Family Court over his role in that massive blaze, tried to call back his friend at least seven times over the following 31 minutes, according to a record of the boy's phone read during the trial's second day.

The first call to Phillips -- placed immediately after the 6:35 p.m. voicemail -- lasted 1:34, but defense attorney Brian Hutchison declined to comment on whether the boy spoke to Phillips or if the call went to voicemail. The next six calls lasted only seconds. Neither Phillips nor the other boy called 911.

Earlier that night, Phillips and the boy, who was 13 at the time, met up on Prospect Street and walked over to the tire recycling plant on Stevens Street. Authorities say they used a ladder to scale a fence around HTI, broke into a boarded-up, long-vacant office building and sparked a fire that caused millions in property damage and took 250 firefighters 66 hours to fully extinguish. Lockport Fire Chief Pat Brady dubbed it the "worst" fire in the city's history.

The boy who survived has since been charged with criminally negligent homicide, criminal trespass, burglary and multiple counts of criminal mischief and arson, including five felonies and four misdemeanors. Because he is a juvenile, his name cannot legally be released publicly, and the maximum penalty he could face is 18 months in a juvenile detention facility.

In the second day of his trial -- called a fact-finding hearing in Family Court parlance -- prosecutors revealed that they had found several videos on the boy's phone that they wished to use as evidence.

County Attorney Claude A. Joerg could not confirm whether the videos were taken Aug. 10. However, a projection of the saved files displayed in Family Court appeared to show bright flames at the start of at least one of the videos.

Lockport Police Detective Warren Hale, who downloaded the files from the boy's phone and testified Thursday, said he did not discover the videos in the files he downloaded until the week preceding the trial.

Lead defense attorney Angelo DiMillo and Hutchison objected to the use of those videos as evidence, saying they were not made aware of their existence until the day before the hearing.

"I couldn't file a motion because I didn't know these existed," DiMillo said.

But Assistant County Attorney and family court prosecutor John S. Sansone said he provided the video evidence to Hutchison as early as Feb. 17. "He had ample time to file a motion. He had everything he needed before trial," Sansone said.

Family Court Judge John F. Batt ruled to adjourn early Thursday, and hold an evidentiary hearing at 10 a.m. March 16, before the fact-finding hearing resumes.

Prior to discussions of the call log and videos, the prosecutors played the voicemail that Phillips left with his friend at 6:35 p.m. Aug. 10. The boy charged in Phillips' death remained in the courtroom during the recording, as did the members of both families who were in attendance.

The victim's mother, Ann Phillips, sobbed shortly after the recording was played.

Also on Thursday, Baff heard testimony from HTI owner Derek Martin, who detailed the extent of the damage to the recycling facility. Martin said the company suffered $13 million in property damage, repairs, lost production and related expenses and continues to incur losses of $300,000 per month, as it has to landfill material that they could have processed and sold.

The company will never fully recover the losses, Martin added, as its insurance policy caps reimbursements at $8 million.

Brady said the city spent more than $39,000 in overtime costs for his department. But the city's overall fire costs are surely much higher, as that figure does not account for the overtime costs of police officers and water and street department employees who responded.

A call to Mayor Anne E. McCaffrey about the city's total losses in the fire was not returned as of press time.

What's more, hundreds of residents were forced to evacuate their home, nearby businesses were affected and residents returned home to find their homes and yards covered in soot and ash.

DiMillo said Family Court caps restitution from juveniles at $1,500.

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