A Brooklyn-based company and six of its employees have been indicted for running a sham safety training program with about 20,000 students, including a construction worker who died after falling from an Upper West Side building, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said on Wednesday.
A Brooklyn security company allegedly doled out tens of thousands of fraudulent safety certificates to students who paid hundreds of dollars — but never provided any training for the crucial life-saving safety measures, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Alvin L. Bragg, the district attorney, said that prosecutors believe most of the workers who were certified by Valor were never trained. Valor filed paperwork showing that Mr. Frias had received safety training, including eight hours of fall protection, but he never took the courses.
A former finance official at New York University pleaded guilty to orchestrating a $3.5 million fraud that involved using state education funds to renovate her Westport, Conn., home and install a swimming pool.
District Attorney Bragg said: “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. 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. 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. With our partners at DOI and DOB, we are determined to root out fraud, especially when it puts New Yorkers at risk. We will not let harm come to workers because companies want to turn a quick profit.”
