A company and two of its supervisors pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges stemming from a deadly workplace accident and were sentenced to community service and probation.
Thomas Aaron Blythe, 47, of Rancho Santa Margarita, Timothy Scott Gordon, 53, of Lake Elsinore, and their employer, Five Star Plastering Inc., entered no contest pleas to misdemeanor charges of willful violation causing death and injury, reduced from a felony charge.
Co-defendant John Lawrence Alberts, 58, of Apple Valley, pleaded no contest Sept. 8 and was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service.
Blythe and Gordon were ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. The company was placed on 42 months of probation.
The case stemmed from a July 17, 2014, accident that killed 23-year-old Daniel Pohl and injured another 23-year-old worker. The victims were erecting a scaffolding on a football field at Mission Viejo High School for the football team when they were electrocuted by nearby power lines.
Blythe ordered the job, Gordon was accused of failing to inspect the site and Alberts was the foreman who “improperly” checked the clearance between the scaffolding and the power lines, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.