12
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 25-31, 2022
Construction company
owner indicted for fatal
Bushwick wall collapse
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
The owner of a Long
Island construction company
was indicted for
manslaughter on March
22 after a wall built by his
company collapsed and
killed a 5-year-old girl in
2019.
Brooklyn Supreme
Court Justice Danny
Chun arraigned 46-yearold
Nadeem Anwar and
his Nassau County-based
construction company,
City Wide Construction
and Renovations, Inc., on
charges of manslaughter,
criminally negligent homicide,
falsifying business
records, and more on Tuesday
morning.
“The wall that this defendant
allegedly built was
a disaster waiting to happen,”
said Brooklyn District
Attorney Eric Gonzalez,
in a release. “He
allegedly failed to obtain
the proper permits and
failed to reinforce and secure
the structure as required
by law. As a direct
consequence of his alleged
recklessness, the wall collapsed
and caused the
senseless death of a precious
5-year-old child. My
heart is with the victim’s
family, and we will now
seek to hold this defendant
accountable.”
Anwar was released
without bail and is expected
to return to court
on May 11. The top charge,
manslaughter in the second
degree, carries a
charge of up to 15 years in
prison.
According to the DA’s
office, 5-year-old Alysson
Pinto-Chaumana was
standing on an enclosed
patio on Harman Street in
Bushwick with her mother
and several friends on August
19, 2019, when a heavy
stone pillar and a stone
plate, which had been supporting
a tall wall, suddenly
collapsed and fell
onto Pinto-Chaumana,
crushing her skull and
killing her.
An investigation by the
DA’s office and the city’s
The wall crumbled and killed
five-year-old Allyson Pinto-
Chaumana in 2019. File photo
Department of Buildings
found that Anwar, a licensed
contractor, had allegedly
violated the city’s
building code multiple
times while renovating
the building in 2018. While
he and his company are licensed
in Nassau County,
there were not authorized
to work in New York City,
and had another contractor
file an application on
his behalf — but the application
was not for building
the wall that later
collapsed. Further, the investigation
found that Anwar
had not acquired a permit
to build the stone wall,
and did not have an architect
or engineer inspect the
wall after construction, as
is required by law.
During the investigation,
a DOB engineer found
that the wall had been built
without the steel reinforcements
or engineer-grade adhesive
required by the city’s
building code, and that the
wall was mostly held together
“by its own weight
and gravity.” That engineer
described the wall as “imminently
perilous to life.”
“This indictment sends
a strong message to the
construction industry that
this City will not tolerate
bad actors who cut corners
and jeopardize the safety
of our fellow New Yorkers,”
said DOB acting commissioner
Constadino Sirakis.