The city’s housing authority is facing another wrongful death suit for the fatal fire that killed a mother and her four kids in a Harlem apartment last year, new court papers show.
Andrea Pollidore, 45; her daughters Nakiyra, 11, Brooklyn, 6; sons Andre, 8, and Elijah, 3; and family friend Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, 33, all died in her fifth-floor apartment at the seven-story New York City Housing Authority building on West 142nd Street on May 8, 2019.
Earlier in August, family for Pollidore, Nakiyra, Brooklyn and Abdul-Rauf filed two wrongful death suits against NYCHA claiming that the apartment in the Frederick E. Samuels Houses was a death trap.
Now, another similar suit has been filed against the agency by a family of claiming NYCHA’s negligence caused their deaths, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed by Andre’s and Elijah’s dads, Benjamin Grant and Jean Belot, respectively.
“The fire and the injuries resulting therefrom and death was caused solely and wholly by reason of the negligence of the defendants,” the court papers charge.
