The owner of a Valley Stream-based construction company was sentenced to prison for the death of a five-year-old girl, who was killed by a part of a stone wall that collapsed. It was later determined that the fence was dangerously flawed and violated numerous New York City Building Code regulations.
Nadeem Anwar, 48, of Valley Stream was sentenced before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun on September 18 to six months in jail jail and five years’ probation and his company, City Wide Construction and Renovations, Inc., also of Valley Stream, was sentenced to a fine of $5,000. The defendants were convicted of criminally negligent homicide, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, and second-degree falsifying business records on May 14 following a bench trial.
On August 29, 2019, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Alysson Pinto-Chaumana, 5, was with her mother and several friends while they were visiting a friend at 444 Harman Street, a three-story building in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
The group was outside waiting near the front door on an enclosed patio next to a granite wall that fenced in the patio and had a base of heavy stone pillars topped with stone horizontal plates. Suddenly, the pillars and a horizontal plate fell inward onto Pinto-Chaumana, crushing her skull and causing her death.
An investigation into the collapse determined that the defendant, a licensed contractor, who was hired to renovate the façade of the property and build the wall in September 2018, committed numerous violations of the New York City Building Code. Although he was licensed as a contractor in Nassau County, he was not authorized to file for work permits with the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) and had another contractor file the application for the work on the façade, but not for building the wall.
The defendant did not acquire a DOB permit to build a stone wall at 444 Harman Street, which was required, nor did he have a licensed engineer or architect conduct a post-construction analysis of the wall’s stability as required. A row of stone pillars must have at least one pillar every 48 inches with a steel reinforcing bar anchoring that pillar to the base. All of the pillars must also be secured to the base with an engineer-grade adhesive. The horizontal plates must be secured to the pillars with engineer-grade adhesive.
A DOB engineer who responded to the collapse observed there were no steel reinforcing bars in any of the pillars. Furthermore, he determined that there was no engineer-grade adhesive securing any of the wall’s component parts. Therefore, he determined, the wall was highly unstable and held together mostly by its own weight and gravity, an egregious violation of multiple provisions of the Building Code. The engineer described the conditions as “imminently perilous to life.”
“This defendant’s egregious failure to follow the most basic safety provisions of the New York City Building Code caused the horrific, brutal and completely avoidable death of little Alysson, leaving her devastated mother heartbroken,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. “Today’s sentence sends a message that there will be serious consequences for contractors whose sloppy work endangers the public. I commend the Department of Investigation, the Department of Buildings and my prosecutors for their diligent work on this case and commitment to pursuing justice.”
New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber added, “Failure to comply with the City’s building code can have tragic consequences. The defendant built a granite wall without following basic safety requirements, including the use of steel reinforcements, leading to the senseless death of five-year-old Alysson Pinto-Chaumana. Now he faces a prison sentence that underscores the importance of construction safety and our commitment to aggressively pursue those who ignore rules designed to protect the public. DOI thanks the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and the City Department of Buildings for their commitment to provide a measure of justice in this devastating case.”