Owner of Roofing Company Jailed for Worker's Death

by M.C. Millman 

Jose Lema, the owner of  ALJ Home Improvment, Inc., has been sentenced to serve time in prison after the death of a roofer working on a three-story building in New Square in February of 2022, as reported by Rockland Daily here. 

The forty-one-year-old Nauet resident was sentenced to four months in jail Wednesday after pleading guilty to willfully violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

The roofing contractor has a history of being fined for unsafe working conditions and was investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor after workers died from falls on job sites. Besides the February 2022 worksite death, another employee died after a fall at a worksite at Kiamesha Lake in 2019, as reported by Rockland Daily here.