A construction firm has pleaded guilty second-degree manslaughter in causing the 2017 death of a worker at a building being erected in the Financial District, by creating unsafe conditions.
The contractor, SSC High Rise, was hired to pour concrete on the upper floors of the 60-story building at 161 Maiden Lane, near the corner of South Street. On September 21, 2017, an SSC foreman ordered employees to unhook an exterior scaffold, perched on the side of the building, so that a crane could move it horizontally. Five construction workers were onboard the scaffold at the time, in violation of Department of Buildings (DOB) rules. All five were apparently strapped into safety harnesses. But as the scaffold moved, it became snagged on one of the hooks used to lock it to the side of the building. At this point, one of the five — Juan Chonillo, a 44-year-old carpenter, was working in New York City construction to support five children in his native Ecuador — untethered his harness, so that he could attempt to free the platform from the hook.
As the crane continued to pull on the scaffold, it suddenly lurched and broke free of the hook, tilted over, and began dangling in mid-air, hundreds of feet above the pavement. Four of the workers within started to tumble out, but were saved by their safety harnesses, which were still fastened to the frame of the scaffold. But Mr. Chonillo, who had unhooked his harness from the frame, was ejected from the platform and plummeted toward the ground. Seconds later, he landed on a construction shed at ground level, sustaining blunt-force trauma injuries that proved fatal within a few minutes.
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Juan Chonillo, a 44-year-old construction worker and father of five, who was killed as a result of unsafe condition created by a construction contractor. The firm pleaded guilty to manslaughter in July, after it was also found to have absconded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and insurance payments.
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As City investigators from multiple agencies swarmed over the site after the accident, they not only found numerous safety violations, but also uncovered two other forms of wrongdoing. First, over the previous six years, the contractor, SSC, had failed dozens of workers approximately $517,000 in wages for overtime work. And second, between March, 2014 and November, 2016, the firm SSC also underreported nearly $2 million in payroll by compensating workers in cash, and then concealing the actual payroll numbers. The point of this subterfuge appears to have been to fraudulently avoid paying premiums for those workers to the New York State Insurance Fund, which handles workmen’s compensation insurance. As a result, SSC evaded more than $300,000 in legally required payments.
On July 3, SSC pleaded guilty to causing Mr. Chonillo by creating unsafe conditions at the 161 Maiden Lane worksite, and agreed to pay more than $800,000 in restitution for back wages and insurance premiums.
The penalty for causing Mr. Chonillo’s death was far lighter. As part of its guilty plea, the firm agreed to pay a fine of $10,000 — the maximum permitted under New York law.
“SSC High Rise stole half a million dollars from vulnerable workers, and then robbed Juan Chonillo of his life,” said District Attorney Cyrus Vance. “It is unthinkable that after a preventable tragedy like the death of Chonillo — a father of five — the company faces a maximum penalty of just $10,000. This is pennies on the dollar compared to the potential profits on a high-rise construction job in a booming real estate market.”
In a call for legislation to lift the $10,000 cap on fines for causing worker deaths, he added that, “meaningful, practical deterrence — in the form of higher corporate penalties for killing and maiming workers — is the only way that New York State can end these dangerous and unlawful practices that put vulnerable New Yorkers’ lives at risk.”
Joseph Geiger, the executive secretary-treasurer for the District Council of Carpenters (DCC), which had been protesting safety conditions at the 161 Maiden Lane construction site on the day of the accident, said, “the exploitation of workers at some sites around the City has become a way of doing business for some contractors. These practices have been demonstrated time after time, and the working-class families of this City have suffered the worst losses because of it.” Echoing Mr. Vance’s call for new legislation, he added, “we are urging that the penalty match the magnitude of these crimes.” He also noted that the DCC is urging that the New York State Attorney General separately, “seek the imposition of a substantially higher penalty.”
“This penalty does not properly hold the company accountable for its criminality,” he observed. “If these practices continue without fear of serious consequence, it will only be matter of time before another worker is injured or killed on the job because their company sought to cut safety corners. Is a life only worth $10,000?”