D.A. Investigates Fatal Accident at Torrance Job Site : Safety: Roof collapse last Sunday killed 1, injured 5. Orange County demolition firm denies responsibility.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is investigating an Orange County demolition firm after a roof collapsed at a construction site in Torrance last Sunday, killing one laborer and injuring five others.

Workers at the site were not properly trained or given proper safety equipment, and the work area was “extremely hazardous,” according to a statement filed in Los Angeles Municipal Court by a district attorney’s investigator.

But an attorney for the company, Radco Concrete, Sawing & Breaking Inc. of Placentia, says the firm never authorized the laborers to work on Sunday at the former National Lumber & Supply store in Torrance.

The laborers were acting as a salvage subcontractor, not as Radco employees, said the attorney, Richard R. Gutierrez. “My clients are not responsible for another company,” he said.

The district attorney’s office Wednesday served a search warrant on Radco’s Placentia offices, seeking employee records and other papers. In court documents filed to request the search warrant, a district attorney’s investigator said Radco and three of its employees--President Robert DeFazio, construction superintendent Jeffrey DeFazio and estimator Mario Aroz--were “grossly negligent” and committed involuntary manslaughter.

No charges have been filed.

Gutierrez said he has instructed his clients to make no comment on the investigation.

“A search warrant a lot of times will lead to no case at all,” Gutierrez said. “Right now they’re making general allegations.”

The accident is also being investigated by the California Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

Miquel Arzate, of Los Angeles, died when he and five other workers crashed through the roof of the former National Lumber store a few minutes after noon last Sunday, falling 20 to 25 feet to a concrete floor.

Two of the injured workers, Rigoberto Sierra, 41, and Roman Aguilar, 36, were listed in fair condition Saturday at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. The other three received treatment for their injuries but did not require hospitalization.

Workers say they were preparing the vacant 40,000-square-foot building at 25415 Crenshaw Blvd. for remodeling. Radco is tearing down part of the building as a subcontractor for LMB Construction, Gutierrez said.

The six men were carrying an electrical box across the roof when a section of plywood gave way, sending the men and the box plunging to the floor below, said Esiquio Sierra, 28, of Los Angeles, a worker who witnessed the accident. The man killed in the accident was his cousin and one of the injured is his brother.

“It was bad,” Sierra said in an interview. “It happened so quickly. . . . It was nothing anyone expected.”

Accounts conflict as to why the men were working on Sunday.

Sierra said Jeffrey DeFazio, the Radco supervisor, had asked him and 10 others to work last weekend. Radco had made similar requests on other jobs, said Sierra, who said he and his associates were paid $7.50 an hour.

The workers--Sierra’s relatives and friends--were taking out trash, plywood and 2-by-4s so that a contractor could come in to remodel the site, Sierra said.

A co-worker, Martin Gomez Diaz, 26, of Los Angeles, said that on Friday, June 7, DeFazio asked him and Sierra: “ ‘You guys going to work during the weekend?’ We said, ‘Yes.’ ” DeFazio was at the site Saturday, he said.

DeFazio denied in police reports that he authorized the crew to work Sunday, saying Radco does not work on Saturdays or Sundays.

DeFazio told Torrance police that Gomez Diaz and others were operating their own salvage operation. Gomez Diaz denied this.

In an interview with a district attorney’s investigator, DeFazio was “vague about his relationship to the laborers. He admitted being their supervisor and later denied it,” according to court papers.

Sierra and Gomez Diaz both told investigators that they worked for Radco as laborers and foremen. They both wore Radco T-shirts and baseball caps during the interviews.

But Gutierrez, the attorney representing Radco, said the T-shirts do not show that the two men are associated with Radco. “I even have a Radco T-shirt. . . . It’s part of a promotion,” Gutierrez said.

Gomez Diaz told investigators that he had worked for Radco for about two months. Radco representatives would get the laborers started on a job in the morning and then leave, he said.

Sierra said he would give a list of laborers and their hours to “Bob,” whom he described as Radco’s owner. “Bob,” in turn, would give him one check for all the workers’ pay, Sierra said.

Sierra and Gomez Diaz told investigators that the workers were never issued safety equipment or given safety training. Radco officials told them to buy their own helmets, they said.

Radco’s attorney said regular Radco employees are given safety training and equipment, including helmets and a safety manual. But he emphasized that the laborers present Sunday were not Radco employees.

Since the laborers were working without authorization, Gutierrez added, Radco had no way of supervising them.

Times staff writer Anthony Millican contributed to this story.