Three building contractors were indicted on Wednesday, April 12, in the first Bronx case to bring charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for a construction fatality which took place, as reported by Norwood News at the time, at 94 East 208th Street in Norwood in 2019.

 

The victim, a father and 46-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant worker, Segundo Manuel Huerta Mayancela, was crushed by 1,000 pounds of debris in what was described as an egregiously dangerous building site, a joint investigation by NYC Department of Investigation (DOI) and the Bronx District Attorney’s office found. Builders also allegedly falsified credentials/permits and flouted safety laws, according to the investigation. They were called out by union workers for doing so, as also reported at the time.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark and New York City DOI commissioner, Jocelyn E. Strauber, made the announcement during a press conference on Wednesday at the Bronx district attorney’s office, located at 198 East 161st Street in Concourse Village, and said three contractors were charged in the death of Huerta Mayancela, and that a fourth man has been charged with fraud in relation to the incident, which allegedly resulted from “blatant disregard for building safety codes and worker’s protections.”

 

As pictures of the victim and the accident scene were displayed behind her, Clark said, “The horrendous death of Segundo Manuel Huerta Mayancela, buried under cinderblocks and metal sheets, was entirely preventable. The construction site at 94 East 208th Street was a deathtrap waiting to happen. An unqualified company allegedly used fraudulent credentials, ignored oversight requirements and building code, and built a dangerously unstable structure. Workers are not expendable. Along with our partners at the Department of Investigation, we will hold anyone accountable for putting workers at risk in an already hazardous profession.”

She added, “The death of an Ecuadoran immigrant at a construction site led to the passage of Carlos’ Law, which creates greater accountability for tragic and avoidable injury to workers at New York construction sites and increases the penalties for criminal corporate liability for the death or serious physical injury of an employee, a felony or misdemeanor, by a fine of up to $500,000. The dangerous conditions presented in this case are precisely why Carlos’ Law was enacted, but this case predates the statute. In the future any construction-related fatalities in The Bronx will be met with this important tool.”

 

The legislation is named after Carlos Moncayo, a 22-year-old construction worker who tragically died at a New York City construction site in 2015. The law came into effect in 2022.

For her part, Strauber said, “The City’s buildings codes are written to support and advance safety on construction sites. As charged, these defendants failed to follow the law and to carry out their most basic responsibilities, including to show up in person to ensure safety standards were being met.”

 

She added, “These failures resulted in dangerous conditions that could have been prevented, and ultimately led to the death of one worker, and injuries to five others. I thank the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for bringing this prosecution and the Department of Buildings for assisting in this important investigation.  As these charges show, there are grave consequences for those who would treat the City’s construction safety regulations as merely optional.”

Department of Buildings (DOB) Acting Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik P.E. said, “New York City has among the strongest construction safety regulations anywhere in the country. The defendants’ stunning disregard of even the most basic of these regulations in this case is reprehensible.”

 

He added, “The Department of Buildings is committed to bringing accountability to the construction industry, and our work in support of this indictment sends a strong message that negligence on the worksite will not be tolerated. My sincerest thanks to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for bringing charges in this important case, and for their continued partnership helping us build a culture of safety in the industry.”

Clark identified the defendants as Augustine Adesanmi, 67, owner of Favored Design and Construction, who engaged in the actual construction; Akhlak Choudhary, 54, owner of Pioneer General Construction, a general contractor for the project; Abazi Okoro, 66, owner of Linzi Construction and a construction superintendent at site; and Fatos Mustafaj, 64.

 

Adesanmi is charged with second-degree manslaughter, and he, Choudhary and Okoro are charged with criminally negligent homicide; Adesanmi and Mustafaj are charged with second-degree grand larceny and Choudhary is charged with four counts of offering a false instrument for filing.

 

According to the Bronx district attorney’s office, defendants, Adesanmi, Okoro and Mustafaj were arraigned on April 11, before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Guy Mitchell and were put on supervised release. They are due back on June 8. Choudhary has not yet been arrested, Clark said, later adding, “We’re looking for him. He just hasn’t been apprehended yet.”

According to the investigation, in early 2019, Atin Batra entered into a formal agreement to pay $1.2 million to Favored Design to construct a 4-story, eight-unit residential building on a vacant lot he purchased at 94 E.208th Street. Adesanmi and Mustafaj allegedly claimed that Favored Design was qualified to engage in new construction and would file necessary permits and proof of insurance.

 

Clark said Favored Design did not have qualifications under the New York City Building Code to engage in construction of a new building, so they allegedly enlisted Choudhary, a qualified contractor, to obtain a permit. Four notarized documents containing false statements were allegedly filed in Choudhary’s name to obtain the building permit, including a forged insurance policy for the worksite.

 

The district attorney said the building code requires the general contractor to appoint a construction superintendent, a qualified outside professional who visits the site daily to ensure the work is being done according to the NYC building code and sound construction practices.  Okoro, a former employee of the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC), allegedly was paid $3,000 for the use of his credentials, and allegedly never visited the site.

Clark said that during the spring and summer of 2019, work continued at the premises without a qualified general contractor or construction superintendent monitoring the work. Adesanmi was the designated “competent person” and was supposed to be present at all times. On the day of the collapse, he was not there, Clark said.

 

According to the investigation, on August 27, 2019, workers were bringing cinder blocks and bricks from the second floor onto a work platform at the third floor. The platform was made of sheets of metal that were placed on top of metal joists. The joists were not properly secured to the structure. Workers had brought nearly a ton of material onto the platform when the unsecured joists fell forward and failed, causing the platform, the workers on the third floor and building materials on the front half of the building to fall onto the workers below.

 

Several workers received serious injuries and Huerta Mayancela died as a result of blunt force trauma with crushing injuries, according to the prosecution. As reported, construction worker union members held a vigil in September 2019 to mark Heurta Mayancela’s death.

Clark said the case is being prosecuted by Senior Investigative Counsel James Goward and Assistant District Attorney Magnolia Perez Rosario, under the supervision of Denise Kodjo, deputy chief of the investigations division, and Wanda Perez-Maldonado, chief of the investigations division. Clark thanked trial preparation assistant, J’Roma Parker and James Antonini, principal account investigator for their assistance with the case.

 

In response to a question, Clark confirmed that the building in question, which is still under construction in Norwood, is under new construction management, and none of the former building contractors are involved with the project any longer.

 

Aside from addressing the fraudulent aspect of the forged paperwork, Norwood News asked what could be done going forward in terms of potentially visiting construction sites earlier to ensure all regulations are actually being followed. Vilenchik said that since the incident occurred, some additional actions took effect in terms of the new building construction code 2022, which established criteria for the placement of cold formed steel poles which he said now have to be inspected by a special inspector.

“Additionally, if you have to store temporary construction equipment the area identified to accept the construction materials must be inspected by a special inspector,” Vilenchik said. “Under normal circumstances, this is a licensed professional engineer or [inaudible].” He added that existing laws had also been disregarded in this case, and that DOB wanted to send a message that fraudulently obtaining credentials was totally unacceptable.

 

In response to a question on whether the City has changed any of its oversight procedures following the incident, Matthew Millner, NYC DOB director of construction safety engineering, said a lot of new regulations were now in effect around cold formed steel, and added that industry notices had been issued to other sites around the use of cold formed steel prior to the incident as well. “It was unfortunate that it [a notice] was missed in this case,” he said. “There are a lot of compounding issues that can affect a failure of this nature and it’s certainly our goal to help mitigate them.”

 

Millner added there is also a construction safety compliance guide who goes out proactively and inspects sites and tries to catch issues in real time. “We obviously can’t catch everything but we have made attempts to fill in the gaps here,” he said.

As reported at the time, the building which was under construction at 94 E. 208th St. near Steuben Avenue collapsed around noon on August 27, 2019, leaving Huerta Mayancela dead and two others injured. Police and fire crews flocked to the scene within minutes.

 

Multiple eyewitnesses recalled hearing a loud noise, but assumed it was a normal construction protocol. However, cries for help from the workers confirmed otherwise. 

 

“Three of them [workers] ran out,” said Anika James, an employee at Montefiore Hospital located several blocks up from the scene. “The initial person who told us to call 911, he had lacerations to the head, a lot of blood leaking down on his face. I think he was trying to assist whoever was trapped inside, to help him get out,” 

 

Two workers suffered minor injuries, while two were taken away with serious injuries. It took FDNY firefighters about an hour to dig and find Huerta Mayancela, who was found dead under the rubble from severe injuries. Prior to it collapsing, neighbors could overhear workers complaining about the durability of the scaffold. 

“It’s not safe, it’s really not safe,” said Dr. Violet Wallace, director of a nearby church. “It’s too small of a space to try to cram everything. When walking past, you could hear them this morning, they were struggling to keep things in control. I think they couldn’t,” 

 

Wallace, who was walking past the building with two co-workers as it collapsed, added, “We were kind of scared because we saw the bricks, they were crashing down.” 

 

The workers had been about three to four months in on the project when the accident occurred, as permits for the property were issued in May 2019 by DOB. Building permits showed that workers were building a new, four-story residential building with eight units.

 

A preliminary investigation by the DOB determined that the third floor of the building was overloaded with concrete masonry blocks, causing it to collapse onto the second floor below, ultimately trapping the worker who died. They also revealed that prior to the accident, no violations had been reported at the construction site. 

 

In a statement released to Norwood News, a DOB representative said at the time, “This was a preventable tragedy and our hearts go out to the family of the worker who died. No building is ever worth a person’s life. We will continue to investigate this incident aggressively and bring all appropriate enforcement actions against those responsible.”

 

“I call it negligence,” said Elisa Luna at the time the incident took place in 2019. Luna is a Norwood resident familiar with the construction site, who often visits her mom who lives in a building directly across the street. “They didn’t have the required equipment for the job. You could see the metal was bent,” she said. “It’s hurtful; somebody is dead because you couldn’t get the proper tools, because you couldn’t create a safer environment for these people to work in.”   

 

 

 

DOB issued a full stop-work order for the project and ordered the building owner to secure the site overnight. Pioneer General Construction group was listed as the general contractor for the property. Residents were left wondering whether the site was safe enough for workers, given what they saw and the speed at which the building had gone up.

 

As reported, a Go Fund Me page was later set-up in support of the victim’s family.

 

Last September, Norwood News reported how one woman miraculously escaped injury after a construction site boom truck carrying poles broke and collapsed onto her car. We had previously reported on a construction-related accident in the South Bronx and the various resulting measures that were taken following the incident, as well as on DOB-imposed fines on various Bronx-based, non-compliant construction-related entities.

Clark thanked DOI for their investigation by Assistant Inspector General Eliza Kopelman and Chief Investigator James McElligott, under the guidance of Deputy Inspector General Ed Zinser, First Deputy Inspector General Kim Ryan, and Senior Inspector General Gregory Cho, under the overall supervision of Deputy Commissioner/Chief of Investigations Dominick Zarrella and First Deputy Commissioner Daniel G. Cort.

 

She also thanked Matthew Millner, NYC DOB director of construction safety engineering, Richard Rosen, DOB senior project advisor, Perpetual Annan, DOB license supervisor, Jose Tejada, DOB construction safety enforcement engineering group principal engineer, Jose Herrara, compliance safety and health officer with the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, David Regazzi of the Offices of the New York State Inspector General Workers’ Compensation Fraud inspector general; Dominic Raspante of New York State Insurance Fund Investigative Office, and Kyle Waters, former DOI special investigator with the Department of Buildings Inspector General’s Office, currently an investigative attorney for the quality assurance unit at NYCHA.

 

Clark later offered her condolences, once again, to the family of Huerta Mayancela. Present at the press conference were his wife, Maria, and daughters. Two other family members, twins, were not present. Visibly upset, and with her voice shaking, Maria said, “Good Afternoon. I demand justice for my husband. I know I won’t see him again but [inaudible]. The DA, here in the Bronx, who is doing everything for me, I’m very thankful for this investigation. I want justice for my husband. Thank you.” 

 

A person arrested and charged with a crime is deemed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.

 

A further update to this story will follow.