The owner of a Brooklyn construction company is facing manslaughter and other criminal charges in connection with the death of one of his workers.
A grand jury in New York returned the indictment against Salvatore Schirripa, 66, owner of the Bensonhurst-based J&M Metro General Contracting Corp. after one of his workers fell six stories to his death while smoothing cement at a Coney Island construction site.
If convicted, the business owner faces up to 15 years in prison. After being arraigned, he was released after posting $35,000 cash bond.
No Safety Gear Provided
The incident occurred April 1, 2015, when J&M employee Vidal Sanchez-Ramon, 50, and two other employees were was smoothing concrete on the sixth floor of a building at 360 Neptune Ave. outside a wire cable protective fence. While walking backwards, using a rake-like instrument to smooth the concrete in front of him, Sanchez reached the edge and fell.
He had not been provided an anti-fall harness, as required by New York building code and OSHA. Nor did his employer provide any sort of safety guard rails or other protective equipment to protect him from injury, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. Now the company’s owner and the business itself are being held responsible for his death.
“As charged, these defendants recklessly cut corners and ignored standard safety procedures, resulting in another tragic and preventable death on a construction site,” Thompson said in a news release announcing the indictments.
A Warning to Other Business Owners
Schirripa’s businesses had been warned four times previously by the New York City building department “to immediately provide guardrail systems and handrails to protect workers from falls,” according to Thompson.
Sanchez-Ramon was the eight NYC area construction worker to be killed by a fall on a job site last year alone.
Schirripa’s indictment serves as a warning to all business owners: Failure to provide for the safety of their workers could land them in prison, said Robert Kulick, the regional director of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“The deaths of Mr. Sanchez and the seven other New York City construction workers in falls in 2015 were all needless and preventable,” Kulick said. “These were people, no numbers. The indictment sends a strong message to those employers who would neglect their legal responsibility to provide their employees with safe workplaces and working conditions.”
Schirripa faced an eight-count indictment, including charges of second-degree manslaughter, criminal negligent homicide, second-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing, second-degree criminal possession of a false instrument, violation of the workers’ compensation law, and willful failure to pay contributions to the unemployment insurance fund.