MISSING IN COURT ACTION
The home contractor who initially took the fall for a Christmas Day blaze that killed his then-girlfriend’s three young daughters and parents is nowhere to be found after ignoring orders to submit documents to a Connecticut court.
A Hartford Superior Court judge has scheduled an emergency hearing for Thursday to discuss why Michael Borcina hasn’t turned over the construction documents, despite being asked for them three times last year, the Stamford Advocate reported.
Borcina was dating Madonna Badger in 2011 when her Stamford home went up in flames, killing her parents and daughters — 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah and 9-yearold Lily.
While Borcina initially told investigators he left a bag of hot ashes from the fireplace in the mudroom of the home, which was undergoing renovations and didn’t have working smoke detectors, he changed his story during a deposition, claiming Badger was the one who put the ashes there. Investigators have said they believe the ashes caused the fire.
The construction records were requested as part of a wrongful-death suit filed by Badger’s ex-husband, Matthew Badger, against Borcina, the city of Stamford and Best Electrical.
The suit claims his ex-wife’s $1.7 million three-story home was “a firetrap as a result of months of substandard and dangerous construction.”
Borcina and his firm, Tiberias Construction, settled part of the suit in 2014, agreeing to fork over $5 million.
Stamford city lawyers say his records are “critical” to the city’s defense, according to the Stamford Advocate.
Barbara Coughlan, Stamford’s assistant corporation counsel, said in a motion that Borcina’s lawyer, Robert Laney, sent her a letter in May, explaining he hadn’t been able to get in touch with his client.
“This puts the defendants, in particular, in a difficult position. They are being deprived of the opportunity to fully depose Mr. Borcina, one of the two witnesses in this case with critical information,” Coughlan wrote.
“It is unclear what efforts have been made to locate Mr. Borcina,” she added.
The city is now urging the court to consider dropping the case if Borcina never appears or fails to ever hand over the documents, the Hartford Courant reported.