On Monday evening, Uktam Tohirov, a low-ranking broker for the notorious employer Valor Security & Investigations, was convicted of multiple criminal counts for his alleged involvement in a scheme that distributed fraudulent work site safety certification cards to up to 20,000 workers across the city.
Beginning last Tuesday, Tohirov’s trial took place at the New York State Supreme Court overlooking Foley Square and was preceded by Judge Michele Rodney. After the week-long trial, it took the jury an hour and a half to find Tohirov guilty.
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In total, Tohirov was convicted of multiple counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree and Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, as well as Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree. He won’t be sentenced until mid-September but could face up to seven years in prison.
In an exclusive interview with Documented, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that Tohirov’s case was difficult to refute given his habit of discussing business with Valor management over text.
“Text messages with the defendant asking them for a card and them responding that the card was ready in less than three hours,” he said. “Someone getting a card for a 40-hour training in less than three hours is obviously ridiculous and now, after the jury has spoken, criminal.”
Tohirov’s conviction is the first in the ongoing prosecution of Valor Security management and associates. On February 28, Bragg announced that the New York State Supreme Court had indicted 27 executives and employees of Valor Security for running a fraudulent safety training school that targeted immigrants.
According to court documents, Valor claimed to have trained approximately 20,000 students between December 2019 and April 2023. Despite Valor’s claims that they provided “safety training, safety inspections, safety plans, and security services” that promised to comply with governmental regulatory agencies, prosecutors contend that Valor instead conducted an elaborate scheme that issued thousands of safety certificates and cards to workers without ever training them.
One of those workers, Ivan Frias, was certified in fall protection by Valor Security when he fell 15 floors to his death on Nov. 28, 2022, while working on a non-union construction site in the Upper West Side. Documented was the first to report his death.
Workers would pay between $300 to 600 dollars for fraudulent OSHA certification cards and other safety credentials. Meanwhile, surveillance footage obtained by Documented shows Valor classrooms sitting empty during scheduled training.
According to Bragg, seven Valor employees and brokers have already reached a plea deal, leaving 20 defendants left to face prosecution including Valor’s president Alexander Shaporov, who is alleged to have raked in nearly $1 million from the scheme. The D.A. alleges that Shaporov pocketed most of the money and spent much of the cash on luxury goods such as homes, cars, jewelry, and a yacht.
Chief of the Manhattan D.A.’s Worker Protection Unit, Assistant D.A. Rachana Pathak, hopes that the conviction of Tohirov would signal to Shaporov and other Valor employees to agree to a plea deal.
“This was a low-level broker in the grand scheme of things so I think it sends a message to the higher enterprise defendants,” she said.
As for the workers who have been victimized by Valor, Pathak encourages them to reach out to the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and enroll in their free Construction Site Safety Training Program.
陈学理胜选凸显华人社区“右转”
D.A. Bragg says that this case is an example of his ongoing commitment to workplace safety and calls on workers to speak out.
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“One thing we encourage people to do is to come forward,” he says. “People who are either experiencing worker safety issues or wage theft issues, they should call our hotline.”
Workers experiencing unsafe working conditions or wage theft can contact the Manhattan D.A’s Worker Protection Unit Helpline at 646-712-0298.
