Another wrongful death action brought against Riverhead Town on behalf of victims in fire that killed five people in November 2021

The father of the 16-year-old girl who was killed in a November 2021 house fire on East Second Street has brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Town of Riverhead and the owner of the home.

Andrea Gonzalez Rivera perished alongside her mother Sonia Dinora Rivera, 41, her half-brother Carlos Cifredo Pinate-Rivera, 25, and her cousins, Carlos Alberto Ramos Aguirre, 24, and Duglas Edgardo Rivera Aguirre, 26.

The family was trapped in the third-floor apartment of a multi-family home at 46 E. Second Street destroyed by a fast-moving, late-night fire on Nov. 16, 2021, according to a Suffolk Cty Police Department investigation report.

Andrea had arrived in the U.S. from Guatemala a month before the tragedy to reunite with her mother, from whom she’d been separated since the age of 4. She lived with her grandmother in Jeréz Jutiapa, Guatemala.

Ruben A. Gonzalez Godoy of Mastic, Andrea’s father and sole legal heir, was named administrator of his daughter’s estate by the Suffolk Cty Surrogate in February. He filed the lawsuit on behalf of the estate late last month, according to court records, after completing a process required by state law for most legal actions against municipalities. The process requires the filing of a notice of claim and, at the option of the municipality, the production of evidence at a hearing.

The lawsuit claims negligence of the property owner, Carmella Cannella, caused the fire that resulted in the girl’s death. The complaint says Cannella failed to have working fire detectors or a second means of escape from the third floor apartment, fire escape on the premises, and for failing to notify or warn the occupants of a dangerous condition in the premises.

The suit also claims the Town of Riverhead was negligent in authorizing the use of the premises while it was unsafe, in failing to inspect and enforce requirements under the town code for safety, building and fire code compliance at the premises, citing the town’s failure to ensure the premises had means of egress and/or appropriate fire safety devices, sprinkler systems, a fire safety plan, failing to inspect the premises within two years, and allowing the possession and occupancy of the apartment without “valid and appropriate building and/or rental permits.”

The property owner lived in the first-floor apartment. The second-floor was divided into two apartments. Cannella and the second-floor tenants all escaped from the burning home without injury. The five residents on the third floor had no means of escape after the main staircase in the building collapsed. Their bodies were found in a bedroom on the south side of the home, where they apparently sought refuge from the flames, according to police investigators.

Town records show Riverhead issued rental permits for the third-floor apartment for more than 20 years. The most recent rental permits issued to Cannella for the three apartments, issued in 2018, had expired on March 7, 2020. According to town records obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request, the town sent Cannella a renewal notice in February 2020, but she did not respond. Town code enforcement inspectors called Cannella once and visited the home three times to verify the rentals, according to the records, but never made contact.

Riverhead Town served three summonses on Cannella just three weeks before the fatal fire for renting the apartments without permits required by the Riverhead Town Code. Cannella pleaded guilty to the three charges on June 6 and was assessed a penalty of $1,500.

Suffolk arson and homicide detectives concluded that the fatal fire was caused by improperly discarded cigarettes outside the three-story, wood-frame home, which was built in 1905.

A wrongful death action was brought against the Town of Riverhead and Cannella in February by the estates of Rivera, the tenant, and Ramos, one of her nephews. The action is pending in State Supreme Court, Suffolk County.

Cannella, who did not have insurance on the property, according to town officials, has transferred title to a limited liability company registered with the state to an address in Sag Harbor, according to Suffolk County land title records available online.

Both the Town of Riverhead and the property owner have filed answering papers to the action brought in February on behalf of the estates of Rivera and her nephew, denying all of the plaintiffs’ claims of their responsibility for the injuries and deaths. Each defendant claims the fire was caused by the negligence of one or more of the tenants.

Rivera’s son and her nephews were socializing with one or more friends on the porch on the night of the fire, according to police. They were seated in the area of the porch where police said an improperly discarded cigarette sparked a fire that spread to furniture on the porch and then to the structure itself.

The charred remains of the home stood in place on Second Street until mid-October, when the structure was demolished and the land cleared.