The owner and the foreman of a roofing company have each been sentenced to one year jail terms because they did not put fall protection measures in place that would have prevented a 39 year old employee from falling to his death from a four-story apartment building in San Francisco.

The Cal/OSHA investigation into the details of the employee’s death also determined that none of the roofing crew were wearing fall protection gear and there were no barriers or scaffolds in place to provide fall protection. Investigators also found that workers on the job had received no safety training and the company had no safety policies.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon explained his decision to prosecute the two individuals as follows: “The prosecution and conviction of these two defendants whose blatant disregard for their worker’s safety resulted in his untimely and preventable death sends a loud and clear message to anyone doing business in our city.”