Dr. Doom

[Illidan]

The demented doctor suspected of blowing up his $9 million upper East Side brownstone yesterday morning was on the verge of losing his beloved home in a bitter divorce settlement - and had vowed to "die in my house."

Shortly before leveling the four-story E. 62nd St. building with a huge gas explosion that ignited terror fears and injured 15 pedestrians and firefighters, Dr. Nicholas Bartha sent a rambling, 14-page e-mail aimed at his estranged wife and other targets of his fury.

"When you read these lines your life will change forever. You deserve it," the hulking physician ominously wrote his wife of 29 years, Cordula. "You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and RUBBISH digger."

Bartha told her, "I will leave the house only if I am dead. You ridiculed me. You should have taken it seriously."

The 66-year-old doctor .e-mailed the poison-pen missive to at least a dozen other people and organizations - including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Fox News Channel - shortly .before the failed suicide blast that left him critically burned and buried. The city was rocked about 8:40 a.m. when, officials believe, Bartha opened up the gas lines in his 19th century building before sparking the blast that reduced the home to rubble and sent flames and smoke high into the clear morning sky.

"I thought it was a terrorist attack," said David Kovac, 23, of Manhattan, who was walking past 34 E. 62nd St. when he was suddenly covered in ash.

Within minutes, the smoldering scene of devastation smack in one of the world's wealthiest neighborhoods was on TV screens around the nation - drawing the attention of the White House, which quickly put out a statement saying the explosion was not terror-related.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said Bartha, who had an office on the first floor and lived upstairs, was the only one inside when the blast erupted. His secretary just missed being blown up because she was late for work.

Shattered brick, mortar, splintered wood and shards of glass spilled across E. 62nd St., between Park and Madison Aves., injuring five pedestrians, most seriously hurting a 22-year-old Parks Department employee.

Passerby Karen Morris, 37, a nurse's assistant, rushed to the woman's side.

"She was young and beautiful and the whole side of her body had deep cuts and splinters," Morris said. "The poor thing, she was shaking. She said, 'Oh, my God, am I going to be disfigured?' She was bleeding a lot."

The injured woman, whose name was not released, underwent surgery yesterday at Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The woman called her mother from the hospital, her aunt Annmarie D'Alessandro told the Daily News. "She said, 'Mommy, I hurt so much,' " the aunt said.

The other injured pedestrians suffered minor injuries, cops said.

Also hurt were 10 firefighters who dug through the rubble with their hands in search of survivors, even as flames shot through the wreckage.

Firefighters eventually heard Bartha yelling for help from deep under the ruins.

"I just told him we were going to get him out," said Firefighter Richie Schmidt of Rescue 4 in Queens, who was able to slip an oxygen mask to Bartha, an emergency room doctor affiliated with Lenox Hill and Mount Vernon hospitals.

When firefighters pulled the heavyset doctor out, he told them no one else was inside. Bartha suffered second- and third-degree burns over 60% of his body and was in critical condition at Weill Cornell.

After brave firefighters plucked him from his self-made tomb of bricks and twisted metal, a portrait emerged of a disturbed, paranoid man intent on destroying the home where he had raised two daughters and now lived alone with his rage.

Dr. Paul Mantia, who shared medical offices with Bartha at 34 E. 62nd St., said his longtime pal had received an eviction notice Friday. The building was to be auctioned in October as part of his divorce settlement.

"I'm sure the eviction notice took him over the edge," said Mantia, who got Bartha's 14-page e-mail at 7:34 a.m. yesterday, about an hour before the blast. "It wasn't an accident."

"This building is really the only asset he had," said Mantia, who added he was told that Bartha has been given only a 20% chance to survive.

"He loved that place. He loved the office and he loved the building. He was still hoping it wouldn't be over."

Cops were investigating reports that Bartha had tried twice before to kill himself. In a lawsuit filed in March, Cordula Bartha said that her estranged husband had declared "many times that he intends to 'die in my house.' "

Cordula Bartha, 64, who is Jewish and was born in Nazi-occupied Holland, also charged that the doctor, who is part Jewish, had tormented her by placing swastikas in their home.

In the e-mail, a copy of which was provided to The News by a law enforcement source late last night, Bartha railed against his wife. But he also attacked everyone and everything from co-workers to Communists to peace mom Cindy Sheehan to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He seemed particularly fixated on how his family lost their home in his native Romania when he was a boy. "I am not going to let anybody evict me as the Communists did it in Romania, in 1947," he wrote.

Last night, E. 62nd St. between Park and Madison Aves. was closed as firefighters extinguished pockets of fire. Two apartment buildings near the blast site remained evacuated.

Serious jail time is on horizon for M.D.

Dr. Nicholas Bartha could face serious jail time if he's convicted of blowing up his upper East Side home.

Prosecutors could slap Bartha with arson charges for intentionally causing yesterday's explosion. Because no one else was in the doomed building, he would likely be charged with third-degree arson or lower, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

He could also face first-degree reckless endangerment charges if prosecutors believe blowing up the E. 62nd St. structure caused a "grave risk of death" to passersby or neighbors. The charge carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

Carrie Melago

Gas line tampering discovered at scene of town house blast

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Investigators have confirmed that a gas line leading into the basement of a landmark Manhattan town house was tampered with before the home was destroyed by a ferocious explosion that punctuated an exceedingly ugly divorce, authorities said Tuesday.

Someone rigged flexible plastic tubing with a brass radiator valve to the main gas line in the basement of the Upper East Side building, said Louis Garcia, the city's chief fire marshal.

With the valve left open, gas was able to flow freely into the house for hours before it was flattened by the blast.

At a briefing near the scene of the explosion, Garcia said this was not an accident.

"We're saying this is intentional," Garcia said, adding later "anybody who is handy could do this."

Authorities have been investigating whether Dr. Nicholas Bartha, the lone occupant during the blast, might have caused the explosion Monday morning rather than sell town house as part of a divorce judgment favoring his ex-wife. Bartha, a physician who lived and worked in the four-story building, remained in critical condition after being rescued from the rubble.

Detectives "want to talk to him, but haven't been able to because the extent of his injuries," said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

Bartha, 66, became a possible suspect after police got a 911 call from his ex-wife, Cordula Bartha. She told them that shortly before the explosion he had sent her a rambling e-mail saying she would soon would be "transformed from gold digger to ash and rubbish digger."

The husband went on by warning her, "You always wanted me to sell the house. I always told you I will leave the house only if I am dead."

The explosion hurled fireballs high into the sky and left the upscale block covered in bricks, broken glass and splintered wood. Authorities said at least 15 people were injured, including five civilians and 10 firefighters.

The 19th-century town house on 62nd Street between Park and Madison avenues — just a few blocks from Central Park — once served as a secret meeting place for a group of prominent New Yorkers who informally gathered intelligence for President Franklin D. Roosevelt before and during World War II.

The building was worth nearly $5 million based on a 2004 assessment and as much as $6.4 million in today's market. It was to be sold at auction in October to pay a $4 million judgment against Bartha, though his ex-wife had predicted he wouldn't leave without a fight.

"He has said many times that he intends to 'die in my house,"' Cordula Bartha said in a petition filed last year.

The court records paint a picture of a bitter dispute that dragged on for five years.

According to a 2005 appellate court opinion, the doctor had "intentionally traumatized" his Jewish wife, who was born in Nazi-occupied Holland, by posting "swastika-adorned articles and notes" around their home. The opinion also said Bartha had "ignored her need for support and assistance while she was undergoing surgery and treatment for breast cancer."

Power company Consolidated Edison had been at the building on June 8 after a routine check found a gas leak in the pipe.

The gas was shut off, and Nicholas Bartha was asked to get the pipe fixed, a spokesman said. The gas was turned back on after the utility ensured the leak was fixed.

Source

Talk about extreme.

[Blackghost905]

This story made me LOL