Inspector in crane collapse has quit

NEW YORK, April 4 (UPI) -- The New York Department of Buildings said an employee who allegedly failed to inspect a giant crane that collapsed, killing seven people, has quit.

The department said that Edward Marquette resigned last week, the broadcast news channel NY1 reported. Marquette was charged in March with falsifying business records and presenting a false instrument for filing for allegedly claiming to have inspected the crane.

The inspection was scheduled for March 4, 11 days before the crane came loose and crashed, crushing a brownstone building. Seven people, most of them construction workers, died.

Officials say that an inspection would probably not have averted the disaster.