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‘OZ’ ACTOR CHARGED WITH NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE: Granville Adams accused of pushing man down elevator shaft to his death.
*Actor Granville Adams, best known for his role as Zahir Arif on HBO’s “Oz,” was arrested early Sunday in New York and charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of a man who fell down an elevator shaft.
According to investigators, Adams had been fighting with victim Orlando Valle of the Bronx early Saturday morning at the Chelsea nightclub BED New York. Adams, 43, allegedly pushed Valle against sixth-floor elevator doors, which opened, causing Valle to fall into the shaft, police said.
Valle plummeted four floors before landing on top of the elevator car at the second floor of the converted warehouse space, police said. Valle, 35, was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Valle's younger sister, Luz, tells the Associated Press that relatives and friends who had been at the club said he was attempting to calm a dispute, but instead became involved himself.
During Adams’ arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, his lawyer Edward Kratt argued that the elevator was faulty and solely responsible for Valle’s death. He also said that Adams was only acting in self defense. According to their account reported by the New York Daily News, Adams was hosting an event at the nightclub when he was attacked with a glass object on the back of the head. He then felt someone climb on his back, whom he threw off. That person turned out to be Valle.
According to Kratt, Adams didn't "push" Valle into the elevator doors -- yet Valle hit the doors so hard that they opened and he fell into the empty shaft, causing, as the complaint reads, "a fractured back, pelvis, and skull."
The elevator had passed all necessary inspections in June 2006, said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the Buildings Department.
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