NYC fines construction firm $25K after worker killed in Arverne in 2019

Jose Martins was crushed and killed on an Arverne by the Sea construction site in July 2019. Photo via Buyus Funeral Home

By Rachel Vick

The New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings has fined a New Jersey construction firm $25,000, more than 15 months after a falling wall killed one of its workers in Arverne by the Sea. 

The Department of Buildings issued more than a dozen other violations to the site’s general contractor and construction superintendent, with OATH hearings scheduled for late December.

Construction worker Jose Martins, 67, was crushed and killed by a piece of a building near Beach 67th Street in July 2019. Martins, from Warren, NJ, was a site manager for a team constructing a 126-apartment complex at 68-04 Tides Road.

The city fined the company Extreme Construction Inc. $25,000 for failing to make sure laborers were certified to perform hoisting operations at the work site. The firm did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.

A DOB inspector reported in 2019 that a rigging crew forcibly moved a 3,100-pound panel that was suspended by a crane on the fourth floor, slamming it into an existing panel that was temporarily fastened to the floor. The temporarily fastened panel fell on Martins and killed him, the agency wrote in its August 2019 accident report.

Martins was directing the work but was not certified to perform that duty, DOB said.

The city issued four other penalties to Queens property owners or construction companies Monday. Jamaica property manager Joel Bercy was fined $35,000 for illegally converting a single-family home into eight individual units.

Two property owners are being monitored for compliance after they were caught using their properties for an illegal produce business and junkyard.

Both reached agreements with the department to cease the improper use.

Additional reporting by David Brand.