Attorney: Pool Safety Law Not Well Known

 By John Christoffersen Associated Press

STAMFORD — An attorney for a swimming pool company president charged in the drowning of a Greenwich boy said Monday that there was a general lack of awareness about a safety law his client is accused of breaking.

Shoreline Pools President David Lionetti of Stamford was arraigned on a second-degree manslaughter charge Monday in Stamford Superior Court. He did not enter a plea, but intends to plead not guilty at his next court appearance on August 12.

Six-year-old Zachary Cohn died last summer after his arm got stuck in a powerful pump drain in the pool at his home. Authorities say Lionetti recklessly caused the boy’s death because his company did not install a required safety device that would have detected the drain obstruction and turned the system off.

Thousands of pools were built in Connecticut before the code change in 2004 without the safety device without causing entrapments, said Richard Meehan Jr, Lionetti’s attorney.

“They certainly never envisioned a tragedy of this nature would happen,” Meehan said, referring to Shoreline Pool officials.

Since 1985, more than 150 cases of swimming pool drain entrapments have been reported around the country. There have been at least 48 deaths, according to a lawsuit filed by Zachary’s parents against Shoreline, the town of Greenwich, and others. The entrapments also have caused many serious injuries, including disembowelments, of children and adults, the lawsuit says.

An arrest affidavit quotes Lionetti’s attorney as saying Shoreline Pools was not aware that a state law that took effect in 2004 required the device. Many building officials in Connecticut also were not aware of the law, Meehan said, noting that Greenwich officials approved the pool.

But John Romano, past president of the Northeast Pool and Spa Association and president of a pool company in Norwalk, said he told Lionetti about the new law as part of an awareness campaign the trade group conducted in October 2005, according to the arrest affidavit.

The trade group also sent alerts to Shoreline Pools about code changes, the affidavit said. Numerous employees of Shoreline Pools, including Lionetti, attended annual trade shows where the devices were displayed and marketed, according to the affidavit.

Meehan says Romano is a competitor and his account will be “hotly contested” in court. He also noted that Romano says in the affidavit that the new code requirements had been “under our radar” for about a year.

Brian Platz, president of the Connecticut Building Officials Association, agreed that many building inspectors were not aware of the new code requiring the safety device because it was buried in an appendix. Platz, who is chief building official in New Canaan, said he sent out about 260 notices after the Greenwich drowning requiring pool companies to install the device in pools that had already been approved.

“It could have just as easily happen in New Canaan,” Platz said. “Everybody blew it on this.”

But Platz said he believes pool company officials knew about the new requirement because it was publicized within the industry and by those who make the device. When he asked why they did not install the device, one pool company official cited cost and that others were not installing it, Platz said.