'Sham' Construction Safety School Connected To UWS Death Indicted: DA

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A "sham" construction school that issued a fake safety compliance certificate to a worker who died after falling from an Upper West Side construction site was indicted on Wednesday, according to Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg.

The school and six of its executives — founder Alexander Shaporov, 40, training director Richard Marini, 70, instructor Eliot Sosinov, 44, general manager Nigina Zokirova, 24, compliance director Marina Balzer, 28 and business director Rimma Chakahalyan, 24 — were charged with enterprise corruption, multiple counts of criminal possession of a forged instruments and offering a false instrument.

The so-called safety training school, Valor Security & Investigations, issued safety certificates and cards to roughly 20,000 students, including Ivan Frias, a 36-year-old construction worker who fell 15 stories to his death in November, 2022 while he worked on a construction site at 263 West End Ave, prosecutors said.

A 2017 law passed in light of rising construction-related injuries requires workers to take at least 40 hours of safety training, including a basic 30-hour OSHA course.

More specialized training, called Site Safety Training, requires 10 hours of training, eight of which are for fall prevention — the training that Frias' Valor-issued fake card claimed he had taken.

“In the construction industry, fraud can mean life or death – not only for the individuals working on the site, but for the general public that moves around them every single day," Bragg said.

"We allege that Valor Security & Investigations ran a fraudulent safety training school, falsely claiming that construction workers received the necessary training required to work on construction sites," Bragg added. "We also allege that the death of one recipient, Ivan Frias, may have been prevented if not for the defendants’ reckless failure to train him."

The investigation was a joint effort between Manhattan prosecutors, the Department of Investigations and the Department of Buildings.

According to officials, for $300-$600 per filing, Valor would forge the city-required 40-hour safety cards, supervisor cards, and specialized training cards — sometime backdated — within days, overnight or even within the same day, according to prosecutors.

Officials said the so-called school never provided any safety training.

The scheme operated between late 2019 and last April, officials said.

Valor's president and founder, Shaporov, personally pocketed nearly $1 million through Zelle payments, allowing him to purchase indulgences, including multiple homes, luxury cars, jewelry and a yacht, prosecutors said.

19 others were also charged as brokers in the scheme — including a NYCHA foreman and two master plumbers, prosecutors said.

"The indictments also charge the brokers who allegedly conspired with Valor to obtain these sham certifications," said DOI commissioner Jocelyn Strauber. "Together, the charged defendants allegedly facilitated the evasion of New York City’s site safety training requirements, intended to protect construction workers and all New Yorkers in proximity to construction sites."

Shaporov, Marini, Zokirova, and Valor were also charged with one count of reckless endangerment for their role in Frias' death for their role in issuing him the certificate which claimed he had completed 10 hours of safety training — including eight hours of fall protection, officials said.

The broker who provided Frias with the certificate, Luz Barbra, 43, was also charged with reckless endangerment.

Fake construction safety certificates have long been an issue in the New York City construction industry.

One worker told the Daily News in 2009 that his site foreman handed him a fake OSHA safety training card at his Midtown site, despite having never received any safety training.