Machine operator charged in collapse deaths, injuries

The 42-year-old man who was operating the excavator in Wednesday's building collapse in Center City turned himself in to police Saturday. Sean Benschop, from the 4900 block of North 7th Street, was charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter, 13 counts of recklessly endangering another person and one count of risking a catastrophe. He was taken into custody at Central Detectives on North 21st Street. An arrest warrant had been issued for Benschop and police were seeking him on Saturday. It had been nearly a full day since law enforcement sources said they were planning to press charges against Benschop. Police said earlier Saturday that he knew they were looking for him. He was accompanied by his parents, his wife and his attorney when he turned himself in, police said. Police said he was exercising his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and did not make a statement. He was arraigned early Sunday morning and remains in custody with bail set at 10 percent of $150,000. A preliminary hearing is set for June 26. "The investigation will continue," Det. Paul Guercio said Saturday. A memorial service is scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for one of the victims, Anne Bryan, daughter of city treasurer Nancy Winkler. Starting at noon, lawyers for another collapse victim visited the collapse site on an exploratory mission. Blood tests revealed marijuana in Sean Benschop's system at levels that "he was unfit to perform safety-sensitive, job-related duties," according to a toxicology report. Benschop, who has also used the name Kary Roberts, according to court records, is being charged in connection with the six persons killed and 13 injured in Wednesday's Market Street building collapse. The charges of causing a catastrophe and risking a catastrophe are felonies. The involuntary-manslaughter charges are first-degree misdemeanors. The report found it "reasonably scientifically certain" that Benschop, who has been arrested 11 previous times, including for drugs, was an "active recent user of marijuana." Benschop also told investigators that he had taken pain killer medication for an arm injury. He was working Wednesday wearing an arm cast, a police source said. At his arrest, he was seen with a cast partially covering his right hand and running up that arm. The blood tests were conducted shortly after the collapse. They were at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where Benschop was treated for minor injuries. Benschop, who lives in the Hunting Park section of the city, declined to comment when reached on his cellphone Friday afternoon. Shortly before turning himself in on Saturday, he returned a call from an Inquirer reporter but declined to comment. Benschop was demolishing a four-story building next to the Salvation Army thrift store at 22d and Market Streets when the remaining structure collapsed onto the store, killing six people. Twenty people had been inside. A law-enforcement source said Benschop had used the excavator to remove a second-story beam just seconds before the building toppled onto the shop. He had begun work at the site about two weeks ago, according to law enforcement sources. He was working Wednesday with a cast from a arm injury sustained at a different work site, a law enforcement source previously said. Benschop said Thursday that he had operated his own demolition company for more than a year and that "Griff" hired him and his apparatus for the Market Street job. That was an apparent reference to Griffin T. Campbell, the contractor hired by property owner Richard Basciano to demolish the building. Campbell, who filed for bankruptcy protection in March, also has a criminal record stemming from a phony car-wreck scheme involving a Philadelphia police officer, according to court records. Benschop served two prison terms in the 1990s for drug convictions, records show. It is unclear how long he spent in jail. Those convictions led to an attempt by the federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport him to his native Guyana in 2005, but an immigration judge allowed him to remain in the country, according to an ICE official. The agency sought to remove Benschop because of his convictions on drug charges, said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information. He declined to say why the judge rejected the request, noting that such details of cases are confidential. The hearing occurred in York, Pa., according to another source familiar with the proceedings. Benschop's case was not unusual. ICE routinely moves to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes in the U.S. Benschop has also been convicted 16 times in Traffic Court since 2006, most for driving without a license or insurance and for operating unregistered vehicles, records show. Neighbors on Benschop's street, on their porches during an early-evening downpour Friday, said they did not know Benschop well but often saw him arriving home in the evenings. They said he lived with two children in a modest rowhouse in the middle of the block of North 7th Street. Some had seen a police car outside the house earlier Friday. A light was on inside the house, but no one answered the door. U.S. Department of Transportation regulations forbid the operation of commercial trucks under the influence of any drugs, or with a blood-alcohol level of 0.02 or above, said Lou Agre, organizer and in-house counsel for Operating Engineers Local 542. But there are no city or state regulations governing the use of an excavator, Agre said, and no license or qualifications necessary to rent a piece of equipment - "zero, none." "All you need to demolish a building," Agre said, "is $300 for the demolition permit and a credit card to rent the piece of equipment."   Contact Mike Newall at 215-854-2759 or mnewall@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @MikeNewall. Inquirer staff writers John Martin, Mark Fazlolllah and Andrew Seidman contributed to this article.