A jury-rigged gas connection discovered in the basement of a Shelton shopping center was “not to code, illegal, and extremely dangerous,” which could have caused a “catastrophic” explosion, according to an arrest warrant for the man police say is responsible.
In June cops charged Tsen Bin Si, a 39-year-old New York City man who once owned a nail salon in the complex, with reckless endangerment, third-degree damage to a landlord’s property, and 10 state fire code violations, all misdemeanors, in connection with the incident.
Si was also charged with risk of injury to a minor, a felony, because the shopping complex houses a daycare.
The Leak
About 5:30 p.m. April 9, an employee at a bank in the complex, at 194 Leavenworth Road, smelled natural gas and called the fire department, according to the warrant for Si’s arrest, written by Detective Christopher Nugent.
The warrant says firefighters and employees of Eversource found several leaks while investigating the gas odor, “one being from an illegal tap into a gas service line in the basement.”
The city’s fire marshal, James Tortora, told Nugent there were several issues making the work unsafe:
- it didn’t have a proper shut-off valve or a threaded coupling securing it;
- a section of corrugated stainless steel tubing through which the gas ran wasn’t secured;
- the tubing ran into a “T” connector, the opposite end of which was left open;
- there were no hangers used to secure the tubing to the ceiling, or ground it electrically.
The investigators followed the tubing and found that it ran along the ceiling of the basement and then into the Queen and Polish Nail Spa, but that there was no paperwork associated with the gas hook-up.
“There was no evidence of permits or inspections for that section of piping nor were there any records observed or said to have been kept or created documenting any testing of that section of piping or any of its connections,” Nugent wrote.
The owner of the salon told Nugent that she had moved into the business two months before after she bought it from Si, who ran the business as Ya Ya Nail Spa, and that she had not done any improvements since taking over.
Police also found a receipt from the Derby Home Depot in a pile of construction debris they traced back to Si through surveillance footage.
Article continues after Google map of the area.
‘Master Tom’
While at the scene of the gas leak, Nugent called Si, who denied running the illegal gas line from the basement to the salon, the warrant says.
Five days later, the detective again called Si, who told him he did not install any gas lines in the basement.
Nugent then asked Si if he had bought items from Home Depot a year before.
At first Si said he did not remember, but after Nugent told him there was surveillance footage of him at the store, he said he remembered buying the supplies.
Si told the detective he had bought the supplies at the direction of a carpenter who he knew only as “Master Tom,” but that he did not know the carpenter’s real name or have any contact information for him.
He told police he did not see “Master Tom” install the gas line, the warrant says.
Building Could Have Blown Up
An Eversource mechanic gave police a statement documenting the violations. He told cops the gas pipe installed in the basement “would have eventually failed and let go as it was not properly connected or mounted to the service line or ceiling in the basement.”
“This gas tubing and its unions were not to code, illegal, and extremely dangerous,” the warrant quotes the mechanic as telling police.
Before the piping was inspected and repaired, Nugent wrote, it was installed in a way that “presented a danger of detachment from the gas service line and additional leaks that could have potentially allowed gas vapors to reach a source of ignition, resulting in (a) low order explosion.”
“Such an explosion or incident often times result in serious physical injuries or death to those in close proximity and catastrophic damage to property,” Nugent wrote, noting that the heavily trafficked shopping complex houses a daycare center “attended by numerous children throughout the day.”
“The investigation revealed that Tsin Bin Si purchased the items used in the installation of the gas system that were for the Ya Ya Nail Spa,” Nugent wrote.
Tortora said Wednesday the faultily installed gas line dead-ended in a laundry room of the nail salon, where investigators suspect Si had either installed a dryer and then removed it when he sold the business or planned to install one and never did.
Regardless, the fire marshal said, the shoddy manner in which the gas line was put in would have meant trouble if it hadn’t been detected.
“It was just a matter of time before disaster,” Tortora said.
Police arrested Si, who won a $277,777 scratch-off lottery jackpot last year, on June 30.
He was released after posting $10,000 bond and is due at Superior Court in Derby Aug. 19.
The Valley Indy left a message at the office of Si’s lawyer Wednesday.
