Atlantic City escalator fatality ruled accident

The weekend death of a New Jersey finance executive, the second person in 13 months to die after falling from an escalator at the Pier Shops at Caesars, was ruled accidental yesterday by Atlantic County officials.

James Vellanti, 42, of Clinton, N.J., died early Sunday after falling more than 30 feet at the Pier, an Atlantic City mall connected to a casino by a sky bridge. Escalator deaths are extremely rare in the United States, averaging about two a year.

Vellanti was the chief operating officer of JNF Asset Management L.L.C., a hedge fund in New York City. He graduated from West Chester University in 1990 with a bachelor of science degree in business administration.

"We're going through a rough time here today," said a man who answered the phone at Vellanti's home in Hunterdon County. The family did not wish to comment, he said.

Yesterday, the Atlantic County Medical Examiner's Office ruled that the manner of Vellanti's death was accidental and the cause was multiple traumatic injuries suffered in the fall. The results of toxicology tests were pending.

The Pier was built to resemble a cruise ship, featuring 70,000 square feet of neon signs and graphics, and is home to 90 retailers including Burberry, Tiffany's, Stuart Weitzman and Louis Vuitton. A dozen restaurants and nightclubs are on the third floor, including Stephen Starr's Buddakan and Patrick Lyons' Game On!

"We are incredibly saddened by this event," said Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman for Taubman Centers Inc., which owns the Pier. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family."

Linda Wardell, general manager of the Pier, said the escalators are inspected annually by the state, and were inspected again yesterday and met all code requirements. Lisa Ryan, a state government spokeswoman, said she could not discuss the results of yesterday's inspection because of the continuing inquiry.

State reports from January and July show that inspectors found minor violations that were to be corrected while the escalators remained open. Those violations included chipped step threads and dim lights.

Thomas Kline, a Philadelphia lawyer who won a $7.4 million settlement for a 4-year-old boy whose foot was severed by a malfunctioning SEPTA escalator in 1996, said these type of accidents typically involve a design or mechanical flaw.

The previous fatality at the Pier practically assures that investigators will be looking into the design, he said.

"With repeat incidents, it raises concerns and it raises eyebrows," Kline said. "Often escalators are made to look attractive, but attractive does not always equate with safety."

At 12:01 a.m. Sunday, Atlantic City dispatchers received a call requesting aid for a man who had fallen off an escalator at the Pier. Police officers reached the scene within minutes and found a man, later identified as Vellanti, unconscious on the first level of the mall. He was taken by ambulance to the trauma unit at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center and pronounced dead shortly afterward.

Initial reports indicated he fell from the escalator while between the second and third levels, meaning he tumbled 30 to 40 feet, police said.

Kathy Rucki, spokeswoman for Schindler Elevator Corp., which made the escalator, said Schindler officials met with a state inspector around 11:30 a.m. yesterday. By noon, she said, the escalator had been cleared and was up and running.

Elkus Manfredi Architects Ltd., a design and architectural firm out of Boston, designed the Pier. The company had no comment yesterday.

Yesterday, the Pier was operating as normal, with no sign that anything unusual had occurred. Many people had not heard of the accident.

"That's awful, something like that happening," said Marge Piano of Spring Lake, N.J., "That's your worst nightmare."

And one that's happened before at the Pier.

In August 2008, Frank Gilbert, 25, of Pomona, N.J., was sitting on the moving handrail of a third-floor escalator when he tumbled backward, falling an estimated 40 feet. He died of head injuries.

The statistic of about two elevator-accident deaths per year comes from a 2006 study by the Center to Protect Workers' Rights. By comparison, about 50 deaths a year result from allergic reactions to bee or insect stings.

Escalators carry an estimated 90 billion people a year. About 11,000 a year are hurt, the vast majority from falls, the remainder from getting hands, feet or shoes caught in the machinery.

For the Pier, the death of a visitor comes as a second September shock.

Last week, Taubman, a shopping-mall heavyweight based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., announced that it would no longer provide financial support for the Pier. The company, which has 77 percent equity in the property, said it could no longer make payments on a $135 million mortgage. It said it would continue to lease and manage the 282,000-square-foot mall if its lender agreed.

That is a far cry from 2006, when the Pier was opened at the beginning of a building boom. At the time, Gordon Group Holdings L.L.C. of Greenwich, Conn., the developer behind the $200 million Pier, was among the many investors pouring money into Atlantic City. The recession froze new development.

Yesterday, it was unclear what had brought Vellanti to the Pier.

Public records reveal little about his company - not uncommon for hedge funds, which tend to be small and obscure.

Such funds are favorite investment vehicles for wealthy individuals, because the funds can use aggressive strategies forbidden to mutual funds. By law, hedge funds can have no more than 100 investors each. As a result, most require extremely high minimum investments, often $1 million or more.

On his profile on LinkedIn, a business networking site, Vellanti described himself as a financial professional with experience in many securities.

He listed his interests as "spending time with my family, personal investing, golf, exercise." At West Chester he was active in Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, intramural soccer, and town cleanup days and food drives.

His online resume showed that he previously served as managing director for trading and operations of Koch Global Capital L.L.C. From 2002 to 2005, he was a vice president of U.S. Bank. Before that he worked as a public finance banker for State Street Corp., and as a mortgage banker for Wachovia.

"We're terribly saddened by this event," Pier general manager Wardell said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family."