A third person has died in the Upper East Side Legionnaires' disease outbreak as the case count reached 72. The attorney for the second victim — an 88-year-old Air Force veteran who died July 17 — publicly named a property owner's failure to maintain a cooling tower as the cause.

A third person has died in the Upper East Side Legionnaires' disease cluster, health officials announced Sunday, as the case count reached 72 and the attorney for the second victim went on record naming a property owner's failure to maintain a cooling tower.

The second death was an 88-year-old Air Force veteran and Yorkville businessman who had lived in the neighborhood with his wife of 50 years. She found him ill on July 2 — 104-degree fever, collapsed near an open window. He spent two weeks in the ICU at NewYork–Presbyterian, intubated and on a respirator with bedside dialysis, before dying July 17. His attorney, Ron Katter, told ABC7NY the family holds the building's owner directly responsible. "I blame the property owner who failed to maintain their cooling tower," Katter said, pointing to city regulations that require owners to inspect, clean, and sanitize the equipment as necessary.

The statement sharpens an accountability line that has been building since early July. Five of the UES buildings on the Health Department's positive-Legionella list had never submitted a required monthly test sample, The Dissent reported July 14. The Health Department has now ordered 76 buildings to clean their towers — up from the 31 on its original list — and the outbreak's source remains unconfirmed; bacterial cultures, which take roughly two weeks to grow, have not yet pinpointed which tower seeded the spread.

Nine people remain hospitalized. Council Speaker Menin's accountability hearing remains on the calendar. Three deaths into this cluster, the Katter filing may name a specific property owner in a civil proceeding before any regulatory body does.

The 2025 Harlem outbreak, for comparison, sickened more than 100 and killed seven.