Owner, Contractor Charged In Elevator Death At BK Grocery: DA

BROOKLYN, NY — A contractor who installed the makeshift elevator that crushed a vendor at a Brooklyn grocery store in 2018 has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors announced this week.

Kwan Yoon, 72, was arraigned Thursday on second-degree manslaughter, three years after a grocery bag vendor using the elevator he installed was crushed to death at the Nostrand Avenue grocery store, KP Farm Market. KP Farm Market and the owner of the store were also charged in the death, both with criminally-negligent homicide, prosecutors said.

“An innocent man going about his daily life died tragically and unnecessarily because of an illegally and improperly installed elevator," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. "This indictment is part of my steadfast commitment to ensuring safe workplaces and holding accountable those who would endanger workers.”

Yoon, who is from Queens, was hired by grocery owner Jin Sung Cho to install the elevator in 2016, even though he did not have a license to do construction work, prosecutors said.

The elevator he eventually installed did not have "critical safeguards," like a door and brakes, both in violation of city and national safety standards. The construction work was also done without a permit, officials said.

"These laws are meant to protect persons from one of the obvious dangers presented by these devices; that when the platform descends, it can crush someone who is in the shaft or threshold of the elevator," the DA's office wrote.

On the day of the incident, the grocery vendor, who was making a delivery to the basement of the store, entered the elevator shaft without knowing the platform was above him. There were no doors or gates to prevent him from walking into the shaft, prosecutors said.

The platform, called to the basement by a store worker who had pressed the call button, descended and crushed the vendor's head, killing him, officials said.

Yoon and Cho were both released without bail on Thursday. They are ordered to return to court in August, according to prosecutors.