An unlicensed contractor has bee🍒n slapped with manslaughter charges for illegally running a dangerous construction site that left one 18-year-old worker dead, and two others clinging to life, authorities said Wednesday.
Michael Weiss is accused of violating Buildings Department orders not to excavate the site, repeatedly cutting corners, and ignoring untrained employees’ pleas for backup as he had them dig in unauthorized areas of a Bedford-Stuyvesant construction site in Sept. 2015.
Weiss refused to provide any underpinning, shoring, or bracing for an exposed wall with a visible crack – which eventually fell onto three workers on Sept 3., killing hardhat Fernando Vanegaz, according to prosecutors.
The surviving men suffered injuries to their spi𒆙nes, a fractured hip, a fractured skull, and various facialౠ bone fractures. They have both undergone multiple surgeries since, authorities said.
The 47-year-old had additionally neglected to alert the Department of Buildings to the digging, and “borrowed” an unnamed co-conspirators’ registration in order to obtain the appropriate licenses for the work. In exchange, he paid the man $10,000, prosecutors said.
Weiss pleaded “not guilty” Wednesday to a rash of charges, which also included criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, among others.
“He only cared about getting the work done as quickly and cheaply as possible,” Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told reporters.
“The workers expressed on a number of occasions there was a crack in wall. They were in fear of their lives but forced to work.”
If convicted, We⛄iss faces up to 15 years in prison.
He was released on $🐼250,000 bond, and will return to court in August.