The New York government is set to create a taskforce that will investigate the misconduct and corruption in the construction industry. The city officials were spurred to form the investigation team after a worker died on a construction site in April, due to alleged safety violations at the area.
City officials made the announcement Wednesday, August 5, the same day wherein two construction companies and two supervisors were indicted for causing a worker's death on a Manhattan construction site earlier this year, reports NBC New York. Wilmer Cueva, a foreman at Sky Materials Corp. and Alfonso Prestia, a senior superintendent for Harco Construction LLC of New York, along with their companies, were charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in the death of Carlos Moncayo. Moncayo was an employee at Sky Materials Corp. who died when an unsecured trench caved at a construction site in Manhattan's Meatpacking district last April.
The NBC New York report further mentioned how District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. recounted the repeated warnings issued at the work site about safety hazards in the months, weeks and minutes prior Moncayo's death. However, the company supervisors, Cueva and Prestia, reportedly allowed the workers to continue. Vance also added that Moncayo's death was "tragic, but it was also foreseeable and avoidable."
According to prosecutors from Vance's office, an inspector first noticed that the trenches at the site were not at par with city safety regulations, which required excavations five feet or deeper to be fortified in order to protect workers from cave-ins, reports Bloomberg. Despite the emailed notices, warnings and meetings with the company, the safety conditions did not improve.
In the report, Bloomberg also cited that Cueva, Prestia and the two companies, Sky Materials and Harco Construction, pleaded not guilty Wednesday. The two supervisors were also released on a $100,000 bail. Ronald Fischetti, an attorney representing Harco Construction, said that the accident was tragic, "but we're not responsible for it," adding that there would be no plea or settlement in the case. Jeffrey T. Schwartz, an attorney representing Prestia, mentioned that his client "did everything he could do try to stop any accidents."
Meanwhile, according to the Commercial Observer, District Attorney Vance's taskforce will investigate fraud in the construction industry including bribery, bid rigging and safety violations. The DA's office will partner with the city's Department of Investigations, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and other agencies. Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence was identified to lead the taskforce.
