NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans inspector general issued two more reports Wednesday recommending felony charges against two more former city building inspectors, alleging they falsified inspections of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site before it collapsed in October 2019.
The IG turned over two reports to District Attorney Jason Williams on Wednesday afternoon, stating that former city inspectors Eric Treadaway and Thomas Dwyer should be charged with filing false public records and malfeasance in office.
The two additional reports come two days after the IG recommended the same charges against former Senior Building Inspector Julie Tweeter for allegedly failing to show up at inspections at the Hard Rock on at least eight occasions when she claimed being there and approved critical construction work, such as pouring heavy concrete onto metal subfloors.
The reports naming Treadaway and Dwyer were produced by the DA in response to a public records request. They say that GPS data from the inspectors’ city vehicles and notes kept by the construction superintendent on the Hard Rock project, Tim Thornton, establish that they were not at the Hard Rock on two days each when they filed reports claiming they were.
The IG's report states Treadaway passed a slab inspection at the Hard Rock on July 26, 2019, even though the GPS on his city vehicle indicated he didn't stop anywhere near the site that day. The report also says Treadaway passed an inspection report on October 26, 2018, prior to the implementation of GPS tracking in inspectors’ vehicles in the spring of 2019. It states that daily logs from Thornton say nothing about the inspector appearing on that day.
Similarly, the report for Dwyer cites GPS data to allege that he falsified two separate inspection reports from August 9, 2019, and uses Thornton's notes to allege that he failed to show up to pass an inspection on October 9, 2018.
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