Nassau Contractor Guilty In Wall Collapse That Killed Girl: DA

VALLEY STREAM, NY — A contractor from Valley Stream was convicted for causing the death of a young girl when a stone wall collapsed at a building where his company was working in Brooklyn, prosecutors announced.

Nadeem Anwar, 48, was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of the five-year-old on Tuesday, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.

Anwar was also found guilty of falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing. He was acquitted of manslaughter and reckless endangerment, the D.A. said.

"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," Gonzalez said.

Anwar's company, City Wide Construction and Renovations, Inc., is also based in Valley Stream.

In 2019, Alysson Pinto-Chaumana, 5, and her mother were visiting friends at a three-story building in Bushwick, The group was 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. The D.A. said, suddenly, the pillars and a horizontal plate fell inward onto the girl, crushing her skull and causing her death.

"Hopefully, [this] verdict will send a message that dangerous and sloppy work by contractors will have serious consequences," Gonzalez said.