Doctor suspected of building blast dies BreakingNews.ie_6041

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Doctor suspected of building blast dies You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
An embittered doctor suspected of blowing up his Manhattan town house so his ex-wife could not benefit from its sale has died, leaving investigators’ questions unanswered about the massive explosion that levelled the building.
Dr Nicholas Bartha, 66, died of injuries he suffered in the July 10 explosion, said Mary Halston, a New York Presbyterian Hospital administrator.
Police were unable to speak to Bartha following the explosion because he was in a medically-induced coma, but authorities have said they were investigating whether the doctor might have blown up the building rather than sell it as part of a divorce judgment.
Bartha had not been charged and “if he’s dead, there’s no criminality”,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, said Detective John Sweeney, a police spokesman.
Bartha’s ex-wife told police she received an email from him shortly before the explosion, warning that she would be “transformed from gold digger to ash and rubbish digger”.
“I always told you I will leave the house only if I am dead,” the email said.
Investigators have confirmed that someone tampered with a gas line leading into the home’s basement, allowing vapours to flow freely for hours until it caused the building to blow up.
The doctor, who lived and worked in the four-storey landmark, was its lone occupant during the blast, which destroyed the building and left the upmarket area covered in bricks,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, broken glass and splintered wood. Authorities said at least 14 others were injured,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, including 10 firefighters.
Bartha’s East 62nd Street town house and the land it was on were worth nearly �5m, according to the city’s finance department. The property was to be sold at auction in October to pay a �3.2m court judgment against Bartha, though his ex-wife had predicted he would not leave without a fight.
“He has said many times that he intends to ’die in my house’,” Cordula Bartha said in a petition filed last year.
She declined to comment on her ex-husband’s death.
Next-door neighbours of Bartha had sued him on Friday, claiming the explosion damaged their co-operative apartment and forced them to leave it.
David Jaroslawicz, a lawyer for Niso and Sherry Benbasat and their son Vidal,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, said the lawsuit would proceed against Bartha’s estate.