Contractors overseeing reconstruction that turned an old warehouse into an Amazon facility in Brooklyn have agreed to pay at least $4 million to a worker who filed suit after plummeting through a roof and suffering a serious head injury that left him unable to work.
The March 1 settlement comes after documents uncovered in the suit filed in Brooklyn state Supreme Court by laborer Abbos Abbosov, 41, indicated the demolition contractor at the site, Bordone Construction, maintained log books that falsely certified a licensed safety monitor was on site in the days before, during and just after the accident occurred.
City laws require contractors to keep the logs for all construction sites, and to employ safety monitors on larger projects.
As reported by THE CITY, the safety monitor listed in the log by Bordone Construction, Lisa Bagnoli, denied being there during that time and filed a complaint with the city Department of Investigation (DOI) alleging that her signature had been forged on the log books and other documents submitted to DOB. On Thursday DOI officials declined to discuss whether the agency had opened an investigation and if so, what if anything it had concluded.
The incident that triggered the suit occurred in May 2018 when Abbosov was helping remove asbestos from the roof of the low-slung structure at 578 Cozine Ave. in East New York. As he walked across the roof, a hole suddenly opened up beneath his feet and he dropped 25 feet to the concrete floor below. Landing on his head, he spent two months in a medically induced coma and never fully recovered.
The court settlement states that Bordone; GSC Services of New Jersey, the asbestos abatement firm that employed Abbosov, and two other entities each agreed to pay at least $1 million to settle the case. The exact amount is blacked out under the terms of the agreement, and Abbosov’s attorney, Andrew Laskin, declined to provide specific details of how much each contractor paid.
The logbooks and records filed by Bordone included daily descriptions of job site conditions purported to be by Bagnoli, describing the site as meeting all safety requirements right up to the date Abbosov fell through the roof. Each contained a signature Bordone claimed was Bagnoli’s.
When Abbasov’s lawyer showed Bagnoli the documents, under oath in a deposition she insisted she was not at the site during that time period and had never seen or signed any of the records submitted to DOB. In an interview with THE CITY, the company’s president, Joseph Bordone, insisted Bagnoli was there and that the logbook entries were genuine.
Ilysa Cholewa, an attorney for Bordone, declined to comment.
Mark Kundla, an attorney for GSC, did not return THE CITY’s call seeking comment.