Ortego, an undocumented construction worker, died when the trench he was working in collapsed and caused a wall from a neighboring home to collapse. William Lattarulo, the site owner, had listed a contractor as overseeing the digging of a foundation for a new coin laundry at the lot, but he actually supervised the work himself to save $90,000, despite that he lacked experience. He hired day laborers for $100 per day. On the morning of the incident, Lauro Ortego was digging the foundation in a trench beside a home owned by Lattarulo. The laundry's foundation was to be much deeper than that of the home, requiring the underpinning of the home's foundation to prevent a collapse. A consultant warned that the new foundation was unstable, but Lattarulo ignored the warnings and told Ortego to keep digging. Moments later, the wall collapsed onto Ortego, killing him. A second worker was injured in the incident. The same day of the incident, the building commissioner had visited the site and noted evidence of shoddy work conditions and issued a stop work order. Lattarulo had hired an architect in 2005 to design building plans, and the architect than subcontracted the work to Abraham Hertzberg, a professional engineer with Sanchez Associates. Hertzberg had lost his authority to self-certify architectural designs and used his partner's stamp to certify the design in Mr. Sanchez's name. Hertzberg also signed Sanchez's name onto documents for building permit applications for Lattarulo's project.