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At Trial, Prosecutors Say Portland Landlord to Blame for 6 Deaths

The trial continued Tuesday in Portland for Gregory Nisbet, who is facing manslaughter charges in a Nov. 2014 fire that killed six city residents.

Nisbet was the owner of the building, and if he’s convicted, it would be the first time in the state’s history that a landlord is convicted for manslaughter in a tenant death stemming from negligent building operation. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever was at the trial, and he spoke with Nora Flaherty.

FRED: It was the deadliest fire in 40 years in Maine, the day after Halloween two years ago. Twenty and 24 Noyes St. was occupied by a lot of young people — students, bartenders, some doing odd jobs, some seeking sobriety together. They’d pooled resources to pay rent, electricity and heat, and early that morning, a porch fire started by smoking materials got out of control. The fire moved fast. Some escaped, but five didn’t and a sixth died from his burns a few days later. The state says the landlord, Nisbet, is to blame.

NORA: What are the prosecution’s major arguments?

FRED: Prosecutors are citing evidence that smoke alarms were out of commission, a stairwell was blocked by furniture and that third-floor bedrooms lacked a 2nd exit, creating a death trap after the main stairway was engulfed. And, they say, the building should have met code standards for a rooming house, which would mean not only that smoke alarms should be in working order, but there should have been a more robust fire security system all around. Nisbet knew all that, they say, and he didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

NORA: And the defense?

FRED: Under city regulations, they say, the building wasn’t a rooming house, but a single-family dwelling, which requires lower fire safety standards. And they are also suggesting that the fire was moving so fast, with a plume of noxious gases in front, that the building’s condition or modes of egress weren’t the fatal factors.

NORA: What happened in the courtroom today?

FRED: Today was the first full day of testimony in Cumberland County court. Nisbet waived his right to a jury trial, so it is being heard by Justice Thomas Warren. It was all prosecution witnesses today. They included people who escaped the fire, some previous tenants, and a couple of contractors who worked on the place for Nisbet.

Most of it seemed to designed to establish that Nisbet neglected the place, that he knew it was unsafe, that it lacked the proper permits. But the most vivid testimony came from a survivor, who described how his run to safety was at first blocked by a bookcase in a stairway and how, once he did get out, another survivor told him that three of their friends, “they didn’t make it, bro.”

And one witness, a clerk at a midcoast tennis club, testified that the day of the fire, Nisbet kept his usual doubles appointments there, even after learning that one of his tenants had died. That drew some gasps of outrage from victims’ friends and family in the audience. On cross-examination, though, the clerk confirmed that once Nisbet learned several had died, he did seem upset.

NORA: How else did the defense respond?

FRED: By trying to elicit evidence that the tenants saw themselves and acted as a family, which some said they did. That goes toward the question of whether the place was really a rooming house or a single-family dwelling. They tried to undermine the credibility of one contractor who testified he’d warned Nisbet years ago that the building’s top-floor windows looked too small to meet code. And they also asked the survivors whether they had been drinking the night before the fire, which those who testified said they hadn’t. We may hear more from the defense about that soon — it looks like the prosecution could be finished with its witnesses by tomorrow.

NORA: How are survivors and their loved ones handling it?

FRED: Of course this is stirring up awful memories for them, and the tragedy’s two-year anniversary is just a few weeks away. But Ashley Summers, whose husband died after escaping the house, told me she has faith in the judicial system, and that what she’s really looking forward to, more than a guilty verdict, is a memorial service that’s planned for Oct. 30.

A Columbia University graduate, Fred began his journalism career as a print reporter in Vermont, then came to Maine Public in 2001 as its political reporter, as well as serving as a host for a variety of Maine Public Radio and Maine Public Television programs. Fred later went on to become news director for New England Public Radio in Western Massachusetts and worked as a freelancer for National Public Radio and a number of regional public radio stations, including WBUR in Boston and NHPR in New Hampshire.