NANUET, NY — A roofing company principal owner has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to failing to provide proper protection for an employee who fell to his death.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced that Jose Lema, a/k/a “Jose Lema Mizhirumbay,” the founder and principal owner of ALJ Home Improvement, Inc., a New York roofing company, pleaded guilty to willfully violating OSHA regulations, resulting in the death of an employee in New Square, on February 8, 2022.
Lema is scheduled to be sentenced on May 22.
“Jose Lema endangered the safety of his workers by disregarding regulations and failing to ensure his employees used fall protection systems,” Williams said. “This conduct led to the tragically avoidable death of a roof worker at a construction site. Failure of small businesses to comply with safety regulations endangers workers and can lead to unnecessary and preventable tragedy, and this Office will hold them accountable.”
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On the morning the worker was killed, Lema sent the workers and three other employees to install a roof on a three-story multi-family apartment building under construction in New Square. Lema, however, failed to protect his employees from fall hazards by having them work on the roof at the worksite without fall protection. After ascending a ladder to the roof, the worker fell to the ground and died from his injuries.
The employee’s deadly fall was not the first time an employee of Lema and ALJ fell to their death at one of ALJ’s worksites or were exposed to fall hazards. The first death, on Feb. 27, 2019, involved an ALJ employee who slipped off the roof of a newly constructed three-story home in Kiamesha Lake. OSHA investigated and issued citations to ALJ numerous times for failing to ensure employes were using fall protection systems following the 2019 death and once after the most recent death.
patch.com
https://patch.com/new-york/nanuet/roofing-firm-founder-pleads-guilty-federal-charges-worker-death
