Boston contractor, owner charged with perjury related to jobsite deaths
A Massachusetts district attorney indicted Atlantic Coastline Utilities, along with its owner, Laurence Moloney, and an employee, Konstantinos Kollias, for perjury on Nov. 30.
The Wayland, Massachusetts-primarily based contractor allegedly lied on Mattocks-Higgins Affidavits of Place of work Basic safety, according to a push launch from the business office of Suffolk County District Legal professional Rachael Rollins. The varieties had been on file when the business secured permits to operate on a High Street jobsite in Boston, the place two employees ended up killed in February 2021.
Atlantic Coastline Utilities was indicted on 4 counts of perjury, and Moloney was indicted on a few counts. Kollias, an employee, was indicted on 1 count. The Mattocks-Higgins Affidavits are utilised to decide any previous violations by a business, and irrespective of whether the company was in the OSHA Extreme Violator Enforcement Program.
The district attorney’s office environment alleged that the firm, Moloney and Kollias, underneath agony of perjury, submitted the Mattocks-Higgins Affidavits to the town of Boston professing that the firm had hardly ever been cited by OSHA for fines, when in actuality it experienced been issued citations by the office protection company on September 8, 2016, and all over again on June 3, 2019, in accordance to the district attorney’s business office.
The corporation submitted the affidavits four moments proclaiming that it had no historical past of OSHA violations. Moloney submitted these sorts three moments, on a few independent dates, though Kollias submitted the affidavit on just one situation. Just about every submission of the sort lead to a perjury indictment.
The two employees, Jordy Alexander Castaneda Romero, 27, and Juan Carlos Figueroa Gutierrez, 33, had been killed when a dump truck struck and pushed them into a 9-foot-deep excavated trench on the Superior Street jobsite. OSHA at first fined the company and Moloney $1.3 million. Moloney experienced recurring violations and a background of evading OSHA fines, according to the company.
Because 2001, Moloney has been investigated six times and fined an more 14 periods, in accordance to a Section of Labor push launch from August. Prior to this February, Moloney had $81,242 in fines, of which $73,542 was unpaid and has been referred to financial debt selection, according to the release.
