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AP Top News - 03/23/2001 |
Co. Found Innocent in Electrocution |
MIAMI (AP) -- Eller Media Co. was found innocent of manslaughter in the electrocution of a 12-year-old boy at a bus shelter built by the company. The acquittal also cleared Victor Garcia, 39, an unlicensed electrician who wired the shelter for Eller. Prosecutors said Jorge Luis Cabrera was electrocuted when he stepped on a conduit pipe at the bus stop. But Eller Media attorney Roy Black argued that the boy was likely hit by lightning the rainy night of his death in 1998. As the verdict was read, the boy's mother, Martha Serrano, burst out crying, clutching a photo of her son. Leaving the courtroom, she sobbed and said in Spanish: ''My son is not coming back.'' ''Eller and Garcia know in their heart they did something wrong, and took a little boy's life,'' she and her husband, Jose, said in a statement outside the courtroom. Black and Mark Seiden, Garcia's attorney, offered their clients' sympathies to the family. A civil lawsuit against Eller and Garcia is pending. Phoenix-based Eller Media is one of the nation's largest outdoor advertisers. |