A Scarborough-based roofing contractor facing criminal prosecution in the death of a worker has agreed to pay $45,000 in fines for years of prior safety violations that occurred before the fatality in 2018.

Purvis Home Improvement Co., owned by Shawn Purvis, agreed to pay $3,000 to the federal government on June 1 and then $500 each month for the next seven years to settle the fines stemming from safety violations discovered at two job sites in 2015 and 2018.

The settlement amount is more than $17,000 less than the roughly $62,350 in base fines, fees, interest and penalties Purvis accrued over the years by refusing to promptly pay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and correct his practices when they cited him.

District Court Judge George Singal signed off on the settlement agreement Tuesday, one year after the federal government sued Purvis to collect the money.

But the settlement does not clear Purvis of all potential OSHA debts, and he faces other more serious legal battles. OSHA has proposed a total of $2 million in fines; roughly $1.7 million stemmed from the December 2018 death of Alan Loignan, Purvis’s half-brother and a longtime employee who worked roofing jobs for Purvis. Loignan fell from a third-story Munjoy Hill rooftop and died soon after at Maine Medical Center. Loignan was not wearing a safety harness.

In previous interviews, Purvis has blamed Loignon for his own death.

“Every single day, I show up at the job site … and I tell them, please, be safe, everything you need is here,” Purvis said in a previous interview. “I can’t sit there 24/7 and watch subcontractors. It’s either they’re going to wear (the safety gear) or they won’t. It’s like wearing a seat belt, it’s either you do it or you don’t.”

OSHA levied an additional $278,000 in fines stemming from a job Purvis completed in Springvale in May 2019, where OSHA inspectors say they found Purvis employees were working on a second-story roof without fall protection, had erected scaffolding that was too close to energized power lines, and were using ladders that did not extend far enough above the roof line. He also faces another unresolved citation from an Old Orchard Beach inspection in Dec. 2018.

Workers from Purvis Home Improvement of Scarborough were back on the job at a home on Munjoy Hill in Portland the day after a worker died in a fall from the roof in December 2018. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

An attorney for Purvis is contesting the roughly $2 million in recent penalties, and the cases remain unresolved.

Purvis is also facing criminal charges in the death of Loignan, and remains free on bail as he awaits trial on one count of manslaughter and one count of workplace manslaughter in Cumberland County Unified Criminal Court. Purvis has pleaded not guilty in the case.

In previous interviews, Purvis disputed that OSHA inspectors understood the rules and laws they enforce, and said he does not classify his workers as employees, but independent contractors, which in his estimation relieves him of responsibility for enforcing federal workplace standards.

But that interpretation of the law has been disputed by prosecutors and industry groups, who say that workplace standards still apply regardless of a worker’s tax classification.

Loignan’s longtime girlfriend and fiancee, Kristina Huff, who is also the mother of Loignan’s daughter, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Purvis, and seeks $2.5 million in compensation. That lawsuit is still pending in York County Superior Court.