The owner of a $1.8 million Hamptons vacation home where two sisters died after it caught fire has pleaded guilty to two counts of negligent homicide in an emotional court hearing.
Peter Miller, 56, and his wife Pamela, 55, appeared in court Monday dressed in matching dark blue shirts, right down to the buttons and collars.
Both were charged with involvement in the deadly August 2022 fire that claimed the lives of college students Jillian and Lindsay Wiener, ages 21 and 19, who were on a final family vacation with their terminally ill father, mother and brother.
Miller told the court he had done the electrical work on the house himself and had not had it inspected for safety reasons.
Peter Miller, 56, and his wife Pamela Miller, 55, confer with their attorney Edward Burke Jr. at the courthouse in Riverhead, New York
Jillian Wiener, 21, (left) and her sister Lindsay, 19, of Potomac, Maryland, were trapped upstairs after a fire broke out in their rental home overnight.
Smoke detectors were not working and a barbecue grill inside an illegal outdoor kitchen was enclosed in a wooden frame that blocked its vents, they admitted under oath.
The fire started in that kitchen. When asked about the grill, he replied, “I built it myself.”
“Do you know that you overloaded the electrical system?” prosecutor Sheetal Shetty asked.
Biting her lip, she said yes.
The couple appeared in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York, on Monday, where Peter, the homeowner, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of criminally negligent homicide.
Pamela, who managed the rental property, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment.
The Millers still face 58 charges in Southampton Township Court related to the illegal activity that caused the fire.
That case is expected to be resolved in a separate plea agreement next week.
The sisters were vacationing at the home with their parents Lewis, then 59, and Alisa, 56, and brother Zachary, 23, when the house caught fire, trapping them upstairs.
Southampton town officials accused the Millers of violating several building codes, including faulty smoke alarms and illegal construction on the property.
In a half-hour of testimony before pleading guilty, both repeatedly admitted under oath that the house was wired illegally and dangerously.
Peter Miller, the home’s owner, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of criminally negligent homicide, while his wife Pamela, who managed the rental, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of recklessly endangering others.
Pamela and Peter Miller were charged weeks after the August 2022 fire after the rental home was found to have violated several building codes.
The house caught fire at around 3.30am on 3 August 2022 and spread rapidly without enough time for the two girls to escape.
Alisa, Zachary, Lewis, Jillian and Lindsay Weiner. The family was on what they believed to be their last family vacation, as Lewis knew he was dying of pancreatic cancer.
Peter, a restaurateur, admitted to carrying out illegal construction and electrical work on the house he and his wife bought in 2016.
His wife admitted to being the manager of the illegal short-term rental property, which had been rented to the victims’ family through the rental company HomeAway.
Lewis Wiener, a former federal prosecutor who knew he was dying of pancreatic cancer, paid $8,000 to rent the house for what he thought would be a last weeklong family vacation to the Hamptons area known as Noyack.
He died in April of this year, at the age of 61.
The parents, who were sleeping on the first floor of the house, were awakened at 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 3 by the sound of breaking glass in the intense heat of the inferno that left the house in charred ruins.
They managed to get out and realized that their children were trapped on the second floor, where they had been sleeping.
Zachary escaped the blaze by crawling to a roof and jumping off, while Lewis bravely tried to rescue his daughters but was unable to get through the wall of flames. The first firefighters to arrive were also unable to rescue them.
Several Hamptons fire companies responded to battle the blaze, which took hours to fully contain.
Only after firefighters began to extinguish the flames were they able to reach the two women, but it was too late.
Jillian, who was about to begin her senior year at the University of Michigan, and Lindsay, a sophomore at Tulane University, were rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital, where both were pronounced dead.
The parents and Zachary were also taken to the hospital where they were treated and released.
Peter admitted to carrying out illegal construction and electrical work at the home, while his wife said she was aware that the work had not been inspected.
The family’s neighbors in Potomac, Maryland, said they were well-liked in the community. Father Lewis Wiener was a lawyer and president of the Washington Hebrew Congregation.
Shetty asked Pamela, as property manager, if she knew that the stove, grill and electrical system were illegal.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m conscious now. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Sentencing is scheduled for November 7.
Surviving members of the Wiener family are expected to have the opportunity to make impact statements before Judge Richard Horowitz hands down the sentence.
Survivors are currently suing the Millers in Federal Court for their role in the deaths of the two young women.
They also tried to sue HomeAway, part of Vrbo, but a judge dismissed it last year.
In that lawsuit, the family said: ‘Instead of fond memories of a week-long vacation on eastern Long Island, the Wiener family is left with a nightmare from which they cannot wake up.
‘The defendants’ greed, shortcuts and deliberate failure to consider the safety of the premises’ occupants led to the deaths of Jillian Rose Wiener and her sister Lindsay Eliza Wiener.’
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