Wilmer Cueva, the foreman of an excavation subcontractor, was convicted of ignoring warnings about unlawfully inadequate safety precautions at an active excavation site that he managed, which caused the death of 22-year-old worker Carlos Moncayo, and endangered several other construction workers.
Carlos Moncayo, 22, killed in trench collapse in NYC
Cueva was convicted by a New York jury of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment.
Sentencing is scheduled for December 15, 2016.
“When construction supervisors take shortcuts, they take chances with their workers’ lives,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. “As proven at trial, Wilmer Cueva ignored repeated warnings about the treacherous state of the excavations he was directing – resulting in the preventable and foreseeable death of Carlos Moncayo, a 22-year-old worker. The verdict again places companies and managers on notice: those who knowingly permit unsafe construction practices will face criminal charges is a worker is injured or dies as a result.”
Cueva was employed as an on-site foreman by Sky Materials, an excavation subcontractor hired to manage construction in the Meatpacking District.
As required by the New York City Building Code and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, excavations deeper than five feet must be secured – typically by sloping or shoring trench walls – in order to protect workers and prevent structural collapse.
The trenches at the construction site, however, were not secured by any method of fortification, and between February and April 2015, the unsecured trenches were not addressed in spite of repeated warnings about inadequate safety practices.
On April 6, 2016, at approximately 9:45 a.m., an on-site inspector arrived at the site, observed an unprotected trench measuring seven feet in depth, and alerted Cueva, who was at the location supervising construction.
Cueva, however, did not address the inspector’s safety concerns nor halt ongoing excavation work, and by approximately 10:35 a.m., the unsecured trench measured 13 feet in depth.
The inspector also observed several workers inside the unsecured trench and informed Cueva that the workers needed to get out of the trench immediately, and suggested an alternate method of completing the task that did not require workers to be inside the trench.
Cueva, however, refused the inspector’s proposal, and allowed work to continue in the unprotected trench for nearly two more hours.
At approximately 11:50 a.m., by which point several warnings about inadequate safety measures had been given, the trench collapsed and fatally crushed one of the construction workers, 22-year-old Carlos Moncayo.
Earlier this year, Harco Construction was convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, criminally negligent homicide, and reckless endangerment for the company’s role in failing to heed and address unsafe work conditions at the construction site, contributing to the collapse of the excavation pit and death of Carlos Moncayo.
The conviction represented a rare and important instance in which a company was held criminally responsible for the death of a worker at its site, Vance said.
The cases against the other defendants indicted in connection with the incident, Sky Materials and Alfonso Prestia, are pending.