A worker who suffered a serious head injury during the renovation of a Brooklyn warehouse that is now an Amazon shipping facility has won a $25 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged a contractor created fake safety logs to falsely claim the site was deemed safe before the accident.
In May 2018, Abbos Abbosov fell through a hole in the roof of the structure on Cozine Avenue in East New York while working with a crew removing asbestos from the site. He landed on his head, an injury that required repeat hospitalizations and left him unable to work.
He sued several parties, including the demolition contractor, Bordone Construction. To fight the suit, Bordone submitted safety-log entries containing the purported signature of a licensed construction-site supervisor. That supervisor said she was not part of the demolition work and denied signing the logs, THE CITY previously reported.
In March the parties announced the case had settled, but in documents filed with the court the actual dollar amounts paid by four separate defendants were all blacked out, leaving only the revelation that at least $4 million had been paid out.
Last week, the court placed the unredacted document into the file, revealing that Abbosov would be paid $22 million and that his wife, Albina Abbosova, would be paid an additional $3 million.
Under the terms of the settlement, the payments will be divided up between Bordone; GSC Services, the asbestos abatement firm that employed Abbosov; an engineering firm, and a limited liability corporation that owns the warehouse and developed the property for Amazon.
When site-safety supervisor Lisa Bagnoli learned of the safety logs Bordone had filed from Abbosov’s lawyers using her name, she filed a complaint with the city Department of Investigation. She says she heard nothing back for months, and called them again in March. This time she spoke with an investigator. Since then, she says, DOI has stopped communicating with her.
On Tuesday Diane Struzzi, a spokesperson for DOI, said the agency “is aware of this allegation, which was made in 2023, and declines further comment.”
Joseph Bordone, owner of Bordone Contracting, could not be reached for comment.
