Several contractors are facing criminal charges in the 2019 death of construction worker Segundo Huerta.
Augustine Adesanmi, 67, Akhlak Choudhary, 54, and Abazi Okoro, 66, were arraigned on charges including criminally negligent homicide, the New York Times reported. Two of the three were put on supervised release, while Choudhary was not arrested.
The charges stem from an incident on Aug. 27, 2019 that resulted in the death of the 46-year-old laborer.
Huerta was hauling cinder blocks and bricks to a sheet metal platform when metal joists gave way, causing the platform to collapse, according to prosecutors. Thousands of pounds of material fell on Huerta, who couldn’t be extracted from the rubble at 94 East 208th Street for an hour.
Five others were injured in the accident, including at least one relative of Huerta.
Adesanmi’s Favored Design and Construction was paid $1.2 million to build the project; Atin Batra was the developer of the four-story building. Adesanmi and Fatos Mustafaj, 64, lied about the firm’s qualifications, according to the district attorney; the latter is charged with second-degree grand larceny.
Choudhary was a qualified general contractor, but a forged insurance policy and fraudulent documents were filed under his name. Choudhary paid Okoro $3,000 to serve as construction superintendent, but Okoro never visited the site, according to prosecutors.
Lawyers for Adesanmi and Mustafaj declined to comment to the Times, while an attorney for Okoro disavowed his connection to the incident.
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Last month, a contractor was convicted in the September 2018 death at a site in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. In the incident, Luis Sánchez Almonte was killed when 15,000 pounds of debris fell on him.
The charges against contractors come after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Carlos’ Law, named after a laborer who was killed in 2015. The law, signed in December, made construction companies found criminally responsible for the death or injury of a laborer face steeper fines, up to $500,000 for convictions.
— Holden Walter-Warner