BOSTON (WHDH) - The employer of two men killed in a 2016 trench collapse in Boston was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of manslaughter and one count of witness intimidation.
Kevin Otto, owner of Atlantic Drain Service, was sentenced in Suffolk Superior Court in connection with the deaths of Kelvin Mattocks and Robert Higgins.
The judge also granted a motion for a “stay,” allowing Otto to stay out of jail through the end of December while his attorneys ask the court to reconsider the guilty verdict.
On Oct. 21, 2016, Mattocks and Higgins were working in a trench at 12 Dartmouth St. in Boston’s South End when it caved in, burying them up to their waists, the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office said. A fire hydrant on the side of the collapsing trench fell into the hole, filling it with water and drowning the trapped victims.
Otto and Atlantic Drain Service knowingly and willfully placed the victims in extreme danger by failing to utilize cave-in protection, prosecutors said. They added that Otto lied and produced false documentation to investigators in the wake of the men’s deaths.
Otto will be required to serve three years of probation upon being released from prison.
The two year sentences will be served concurrently. The sentencing guidelines called for up to 5 years. The families of the victims were visibly upset, seen in tears leaving the courtroom. #7News
— Juliana Mazza (@julianamazzatv) December 5, 2019
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