An Alabama company pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to willfully violating regulations that investigators say led to the 2017 death of a worker who was pulled into a machine.

ABC Polymer Industries entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon in Birmingham.

Sentencing will be determined at a later hearing. Conviction carries a maximum $500,000 fine and can include restitution to the victim.

The case has already resulted in $3 million in damages last year, as well as $200,000 in fines.

Alabaster resident Catalina Estillado, also known as Eva Saenz, died Aug. 16, 2017 at ABC Polymer Industries in Helena when her hand got caught in a machine’s rollers.

According to court documents, ABC Polymer’s machinery pulled flat plastic sheets through a series of rollers arranged in clusters, before cutting them into plastic threads or tapes.

Investigators said the machine at issue in the case was equipped with a “cage,” or barrier guard, that could be pulled down over one of the exposed sides of the rollers. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards require moving machinery such as this to be guarded while the machine is energized.

Prosecutors contended that ABC Polymer was aware that employees routinely raised the guard to cut tangled plastic off the rollers, and the company trained its employees in how to cut the plastic off the unguarded rollers. According to prosecutors, ABC Polymer admitted that it knew, or should have known, that doing so violated the law and endangered its employees.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim, of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said Estillado’s death was “entirely preventable.”

“Employers who willfully violate OSHA standards are gambling with their employees’ health and lives,” Kim said. “We will continue to hold accountable those who fail to follow these critical safety rules.”