WHITE PLAINS – The owner of a contracting company has been arrested at his Nanuet home on a charge that he failed to ensure employees wore fall protection systems.
Jose Lema, also known as Jose Lema Mizhirumbay, 40, owner of ALJ Home Improvements, Inc., was hired to do work in the Village of New Square.
Federal authorities said on February 8, 2022, one of his employees fell off the roof of a building under construction and died.
On that morning, Lema sent four employees to install a roof on a three-story multi-family apartment building under construction.
The men climbed a ladder to the roof, but within 20 to 30 minutes, the victim fell some 30 feet to the ground and died.
Authorities said the victim was wearing a safety harness, but there was no lanyard, rope, or any other attachment connected to the D-ring on the back of the harness that would have connected him to the roof. There were also no anchors on the roof to attach a rope had there been one connected to the harness.
The US Labor Department’s Occupational and Safety Administration cited ALJ for failing to ensure its employees were using protection systems.
The death of the worker in New Square was not the first time an employee of Lema and ALJ fell to his death at one of ALJ’s worksites or that ALJ workers were exposed to fall hazards.
The first death occurred on February 27, 2019 when an employee slipped off the roof of a newly constructed three-story home in Kiamesha Lake, fell 35 feet to the ground and died. He was not wearing a safety harness and OSHA issued citations to ALJ for, among other things, failure to ensure employees wear fall protection systems.
ALJ settled and agreed to pay a penalty.
There were five more incidents on five different worksites in New York and New Jersey after the second victim’s death and before the first man was killed.
In each case, ALJ settled and agreed to pay a penalty.
