Criminal trial in Philly building collapse coming September 2015

    The site of the fatal Center City building collapse

    The site of the fatal Center City building collapse

    It will be almost another year before the criminal trial tied to last year’s deadly building collapse in Center City Philadelphia gets underway.

    The case is scheduled to start September 21, 2015. Five-weeks have been blocked out for the proceedings before Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn Bronson.

    General contractor Griffin Campbell and excavator operator Sean Benschop are both facing third-degree murder charges in connection to the collapse at 22nd and Market streets.

    Prosecutors say the pair both knowingly put lives at risk while taking down an unsupported four-story wall looming above a busy Salvation Army Thrift Store.

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    Defense lawyers disagree and say the men are scapegoats.

    Campbell and Benschop have been behind bars since being arrested after the June 5, 2013 collapse that killed six and injured 14 more.

    A gag order remains in place unless and until it’s lifted by Bronson.

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