Scofflaw Rockland Roofing Contractor Faces Criminal Charge

NANUET, NY — With two employees dead in three years from workplace falls and millions in fines and penalties, a Rockland County-based contractor has now been arrested.

Jose Lema, the founder and principal of ALJ Home Improvement, was arrested Tuesday morning at his home in Nanuet to be presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Victoria Reznik in White Plains federal court, according to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Jonathan Mellone, the Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Region of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Inspector General.

Lema, a/k/a Jose Lema Mizhirumbay, was charged with willfully violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, resulting in the death of an employee, who fell off the roof of a building under construction in New Square, New York on Feb. 8, 2022, and died. The complaint charges that Lema failed to ensure employees wore fall protection systems.

"As alleged, Lema endangered the safety of his workers by disregarding regulations and failing to ensure his employees used fall protection systems," Williams said in a news release. "This conduct led to the death of a roof worker on a construction site. Today’s charge should serve as a reminder to small businesses that failure to comply with safety regulations can lead to unnecessary and preventable tragedy."

The Nanuet-based roofing and siding contractor works throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and has a significant history of safety violations and penalties.

SEE:

• Scofflaw Rockland Roofing Contractor Faces New OSHA Penalty Of $687K
• $1.34 Million Penalty Added To Nanuet Contractor Fines After 2nd Death
• Rockland Roofing Contractor Exposed Workers To Deadly Falls

"Since 2019, two employees of ALJ Home Improvement have suffered fatal falls and ALJ continues to callously ignore the law and blatantly jeopardize the safety of its workers," Occupational Safety and Health Administration Area Director, Lisa Levy, said Feb. 3. "The company repeatedly refuses to comply with OSHA standards and make worker safety a priority, choosing instead to put profit over the lives of its employees. The reality is that a safe workplace is actually a more profitable workplace."

By law, residential construction employers generally must protect workers against falls with guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems when they work 6 feet or more above lower levels, as well as provide personal protective equipment to protect against bodily injury.

The first fatal fall was in Sullivan County in 2019. On Feb. 27, an ALJ employee slipped off the roof of a newly constructed three-story home in Kiamesha Lake, New York, fell 35 feet to the ground, and subsequently died from his injuries. OSHA determined that the man, whom prosecutors call Victim-2, was not wearing a safety harness and issued citations to ALJ for, among other things, failure to ensure employees wear fall protection systems.

The second fall took place when four ALJ employees were installing a roof on a three-story multi-family apartment building under construction in New Square. The victim and the others ascended a ladder to the roof, but within 20 to 30 minutes, he fell off, landed on the ground about 30 feet below, and died from his injuries.

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, prosecutors said. Nor were there anchors on the roof to attach a rope had there been one connected to the harness. OSHA cited ALJ again for failing to ensure its employees were using fall protection systems.

In all, between in or about 2019 and in or about 2023, OSHA performed eight investigations of ALJ worksites that resulted in the issuance of 24 willful citations, 16 serious citations, and over $2.3 million in penalties, prosecutors said.

Each time OSHA investigated, Compliance Safety and Health Officials met with Lema and made him aware of his rights and obligations to his employees. At an OSHA administrative deposition, Lema admitted that prior to Victim-1’s fall, he knew that employees on a roof higher than six feet high needed to be protected by some form of fall protection, prosecutors said.