Three contractors have been indicted in a 2019 collapse at a Bronx, N.Y., construction site where a worker was crushed to death by 1,000 pounds of debris. A fourth man is charged with fraud for disregarding safety codes.

The Bronx District Attorney's office said last week it uncovered multiple layers of fraud used to get the permits to build at 94 East 208th Street and there was no qualified general contractor or construction superintendent monitoring work, according to a news release.

Augustine Adesanmi, 67, owner of Favored Design and Construction; Akhlak Choudhary, 54, owner of Pioneer General Construction; and Abazi Okoro, 66, owner of Linzi Construction, were arraigned on charges of criminally negligent homicide. Adesanmi and Okoro were put on supervised release, but Choudhary has not been arrested. They are due back in court on June 8.

Segundo Manuel Huerta Mayancela, 46, an Ecuadoran immigrant, died in the 2019 incident due to blunt force trauma from crushing injuries. Five other workers sustained serious injuries.

“The construction site was a deathtrap waiting to happen,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said in a statement. “An unqualified company allegedly used fraudulent credentials, ignored oversight requirements and building codes, and built a dangerously unstable structure.” 

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, allegedly lied about the firm’s qualifications, according to the district attorney, who charged Mustafaj with manslaughter.

According to the district attorney’s office, 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 a construction superintendent, but Okoro never visited the site, according to prosecutors.

On Aug. 27, 2019, workers were hauling concrete block and bricks from the second floor onto a third-floor work platform made of sheets of metal on metal joists.

The joists were not properly secured to the structure. Workers brought nearly a ton of material onto the platform when the unsecured joists failed, causing the platform, the workers on the third floor and building materials on the front half of the building to fall onto workers below, the prosecutor’s report said.