Contractor Violated NYC Building Code, Caused Fatal Wall Collaspe: DA

BROOKLYN, NY — A Long Island contractor has been convicted of criminally negligent homicide after he violated New York City's building code — causing the death of a 5-year-old Brooklyn girl when a wall he built collapsed and killed her back in 2019, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Nadeem Anwar, 48, of Valley Stream, was convicted by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun and faces other charges including first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, and second-degree falsifying business records, prosecutors said.

Anwar was the owner of City Wide Construction and Renovations, Inc., which was licensed to do work in Nassau County but not in NYC, prosecutors said.

Instead, he had another contractor file the application for the work on the façade, but not for building the wall.

On Aug. 29, Alysson Pinto-Chaumana was with her mother and others individuals visiting a friend at 444 Harman Street, a three-story building in Bushwick.

The group was outside waiting near the front door on an enclosed patio next to a granite wall that fenced in the patio when the pillars and a horizontal plate fell inward onto Alysson, crushing and killing her, prosecutors said.

An investigation into the collapse determined that Anwar did not have a licensed engineer or architect conduct a post-construction analysis of the wall’s stability as required, prosecutors said.

In addition, Anwar failed to have a steel reinforcing bar anchoring that pillar to the base.

“This is a heartbreaking instance where a young child was needlessly and senselessly taken from her family because this defendant chose to ignore safety protocols by violating numerous provisions of New York City’s building code, building a heavy stone fence and failing to secure it," District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. "Hopefully, today’s verdict will send a message that dangerous and sloppy work by contractors will have serious consequences.”

A DOB engineer who responded to the collapse observed there were no steel reinforcing bars in any of the pillars. He also determined that there was no engineer-grade adhesive securing any of the wall’s component parts, prosecutors said.

The DOB engineer concluded the wall was highly unstable and held together mostly by its own weight and gravity.

The engineer described the conditions as “imminently perilous to life.”

Anwar will be sentenced on Aug. 14.