MIAMI – The man who wired a bus stop shelter where a 12-year-old was electrocuted admitted in court Tuesday that he never had a license to work as an electrician.
Victor Garcia said he felt regret about what happened, but testified that he believed the shelter was safe to his knowledge
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Garcia admitted that he never received an electrician license from the state of Florida or Miami-Dade County, even though he served as head electrician for Eller Media for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in 1997 and 1998.
Jorge Cabrera Jr. died the night of Oct. 12, 1998, in the bus shelter. Investigators said that there were no eyewitnesses.
The attorneys for Jorge Cabrera Sr. said that Cabrera's son was killed because Garcia installed a substandard transformer and grounding rods that were cut too short and didn't ground the shelter.
Eller Media attorney Ron Cabaniss said that it was lightning and not poor wiring that killed the boy.
"Let me be clear. It (the wiring) doesn't have one thing to do with what caused Jorge Cabrera's death," Cabaniss said.
A national lightning detection service reported a lightning strike in the area of the bus stop at about the same time the boy was killed.
Garcia and Eller Media were acquitted of criminal charges in an earlier trial because the jury found reasonable doubt that the wiring job caused the boy's death. In this civil trial, the jury will be deciding which cause of death was most likely, electrocution from the wiring or lightning.