NIAGARA FALLS — A Niagara County grand jury has asked for evidence about the unlicensed bed-and-breakfast where a 12-year-old Bronx girl was staying when she drowned in the Niagara River during the summer.
Meanwhile, less than two months since the drowning, the City of Niagara Falls is prosecuting the woman who ran the facility on building code violations.
The city’s Building Inspections Department was served with a subpoena by the Niagara County district attorney’s office in late August, and city inspectors had given Eva Hedges until the end of September to bring the property up to code, according to city records obtained by The Buffalo News.
She has not, those records indicate.
As the legal proceedings move forward, a neighbor said Renaissance House, as the home at 722 Fourth St. had been known, hosted house guests last weekend despite a previous order by the city to cease operations as a bed-and-breakfast.
A subpoena ordered the city to produce documents before a grand jury beginning Aug. 26, according to city records. The documents included items related to construction and remodeling at Renaissance House, as well as any contractor work on the property.
Niagara County District Attorney Michael J. Violante, whose office sent investigators to the Fourth Street home about a week after 12-year-old Magdalena Lubowski went missing, did not return a call to comment.
Police said Hedges’ son, Timothy, allowed a group of 23 youths to travel more than 500 feet off a marked trail in the Niagara Gorge — the most difficult trail in the gorge — when Magdalena slipped off a rock and into the fast-moving rapids on Aug. 13.
Her body was found by two kayakers in the Lower Niagara River 10 days later.
Tom Scheira, who lives across the street from the Hedges’ home, said two families totaling five or six people, all adults, arrived to stay at the Renaissance House on Friday and have since left.
One of the families was driving a vehicle with Rhode Island license plates, Scheira said.
“These guys are really sneaky,” he said. Read more..
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