NY — A business that ran a “sham safety training school” and was linked to the death of a “trainee” on a construction site has been charged by the New York State Supreme Court.
Valor Security and Investigations is said to have given safety cards and certifications to roughly 20,000 “students” starting in December 2019. The business was the third-largest distributor of safety certifications in New York City at the time.
Six Valor executives and staff members as well as an additional 19 people who acted as middlemen between Valor and workers seeking safety certification are parties to the extensive lawsuit.
According to a press release from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office dated February 28, “Valor employees had long-standing payment arrangements with brokers to obtain 40-hour safety cards, supervisor cards, and specialized training cards within days, overnight, or even within the same day, which were often backdated.” For a basic safety training card, Valuer charged between $300 and $600 per filing; many payments were made in cash.
Following the death of 36-year-old Ivan Frias in 2022 from a fall from the 15th story of a West End Avenue construction site, four more people were charged with reckless endangerment. It is said that Valor submitted false documentation certifying that Frias had finished ten hours of safety instruction, which included eight hours of fall prevention training.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr. stated in the statement that “fraud can mean life or death in the construction industry – not only for the individuals working on the site, but for the general public that moves around them every single day.” “We contend that Valor Security and Investigations operated a phony safety training program, making false claims that the instruction provided to construction workers qualified them to operate on building sites. We also claim that if the defendants had not carelessly neglected to provide Ivan Frias with training, his death would have been avoided.