William Lattarulo

Description

Ortego, an undocumented construction worker, died when the trench he was working in collapsed and caused a wall from a neighboring home to collapse. William Lattarulo, the site owner, had listed a contractor as overseeing the digging of a foundation for a new coin laundry at the lot, but he actually supervised the work himself to save $90,000, despite that he lacked experience. He hired day laborers for $100 per day. On the morning of the incident, Lauro Ortego was digging the foundation in a trench beside a home owned by Lattarulo. The laundry's foundation was to be much deeper than that of the home, requiring the underpinning of the home's foundation to prevent a collapse. A consultant warned that the new foundation was unstable, but Lattarulo ignored the warnings and told Ortego to keep digging. Moments later, the wall collapsed onto Ortego, killing him. A second worker was injured in the incident. The same day of the incident, the building commissioner had visited the site and noted evidence of shoddy work conditions and issued a stop work order. Lattarulo had hired an architect in 2005 to design building plans, and the architect than subcontracted the work to Abraham Hertzberg, a professional engineer with Sanchez Associates. Hertzberg had lost his authority to self-certify architectural designs and used his partner's stamp to certify the design in Mr. Sanchez's name. Hertzberg also signed Sanchez's name onto documents for building permit applications for Lattarulo's project.

Prosecutors

Unavailable