Editor's note: This story has been updated
By: Alex Wood
Source: Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn. (TNS)
May 16—VERNON—The owner of a Manchester construction company and an equipment operator were sentenced to probation Friday at state Superior Court in Vernon after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter last month in the 2022 death of a worker who was buried in a trench collapse.
Botticello Inc. owner Dennis Botticello, 70, of Suffield and Glen Locke, 68, of Somers each could have faced up to five years in prison under their plea agreements, although their lawyers had the right to argue for lesser sentences, State's Attorney Matthew Gedansky said previously.
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On Friday, Judge Kathleen McNamara put Botticello and Locke on probation for two years each, with the possibility of up to two years in prison for any violation of release conditions, which she expressed confidence will not happen. A unique probation condition she set was that the two men come up with a plan to honor the life of the victim, Dennis Slater, 56. She threw out the ideas of a scholarship fund or a youth group at the joint sentencing of the two men.
"This was really a tragic accident," McNamara said. "Unfortunately, you lost one of your best friends, both of you."
Slater's widow, who was identified only by her initials in court, spoke at the sentencing in favor of a non-prison sentence.
"Not only were they coworkers, but they were best friends," she said. "There's been enough tragedy."
Both men originally were charged with first-degree manslaughter. They have been free on $50,000 bonds since their March 2023 arrests.
Neither man had ever been arrested before, their lawyers said during the sentencing.
An investigation revealed that proper safeguards were not in place to prevent a collapse when the 8-foot-deep trench caved in and buried Slater on July 22, 2022, on Bolton Branch Road in Vernon, according to Gedansky, who prosecuted the case.
Locke was the equipment operator working near Slater at the time of the collapse, the prosecutor said.
Watch a Fox 61 news report describing the accident nearby.
Despite her sympathy for the defendants, the judge said, "I cannot understand why you did not employ a trench box or a ladder."
Trench boxes are pairs of metal sheets, connected by heavy metal rods, that are placed in trenches to prevent collapses during construction work. Ladders are placed in trenches to provide workers with the ability to get out rapidly when a collapse is imminent.
According to affidavits by Vernon police Detective Mike Patrizz, Locke, who was laying pipe into the trench with an excavator, told investigators the trench had collapsed twice that day before the collapse that killed Slater.
Locke also told investigators that workers typically used a trench box to hold the wall of the trench, but "the banks were holding up fine here. I guess we play the odds," the detective reported.
Patrizz wrote that he inspected the roughly 8-foot-deep trench after the collapse and "there were no indications that the sides of the trench had been sloped, benched or any other trench safety measures had been instituted in any place over the length of the entire exposed trench."
Locke told investigators that Slater tried to get out of the trench as it collapsed, and Locke could not stop the wall of the trench from collapsing with the excavator "because the pipe was still chained to it," according to the detective. Locke and two others jumped in and began trying to dig out Slater with their hands and a shovel but could not find him beneath the earth.
Locke said he then used the excavator to try to dig out Slater, and once they uncovered his hard hat, they began digging him out by hand, the detective reported.
Medics took Slater to Manchester Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The Connecticut chief medical examiner's office later ruled the cause of death was "blunt impact injury of the head, torso and extremities with chest compression," according to the detective.
A friend of Slater's from Arizona sent police screenshots of text messages she had with him on July 12, 10 days before the fatal accident, in which he complained that he was working in a trench by himself and it had already collapsed twice, according to the detective.
Locke admitted during an interview that he knew the trench was supposed to have ladders every 25 feet, as required by regulation, according to the detective. But "the only ladders present in the trench when the police arrived after the collapse were the ladders placed by the fire department," Patrizz wrote.
Robert J.T. Britt, the attorney representing Botticello, said Slater's widow has never wavered from her position, and he stressed that the people working for Botticello Inc. have a "familial relationship," as many have worked together for decades.
He also stressed Botticello's feeling of responsibility for what happened.
"I saw a deep emotional side of Dennis that I had never seen before," the defense lawyer said of his client.
In 2015, OSHA investigators found four serious violations connected to Botticello Inc.'s trenching work at a Stafford site, Gedansky has said.
At the Stafford job site, the Department of Labor reported there was no "competent person" inspecting the excavation for hazards and "no cave-in protection was in use."
During the previous inspection, officials interviewed Locke and found he was not a "trench/excavation competent person," the detective reported. When the Labor Department inspector brought that issue up to Botticello, the owner said Locke "knew enough" and it was "common sense stuff," the detective added.
The inspector told Botticello he needed to get his company trench and excavation competent person training, according to the detective, and Botticello "stated he would get Locke trained as a competent person immediately and he asked for several sources of training."
But when he was interviewed after the 2022 accident that killed Slater, Botticello indicated there had not been any trench competent person training, according to the detective.
He said he owned several trench boxes, but the detective said they were not on site at the time of the accident.
Before he was sentenced, Locke said of Slater, "I admired Dennis' work ethic, his pride and his professionalism. It is a day that will haunt me forever."
This story includes previous reporting by Staff Writers Peter Yankowski and Christine Dempsey.
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