A prosecutor at the trial of three construction supervisors charged in the deaths of two firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building told the jury on Monday that the defendants had “put profit over people,” a decision that led to the deaths and put the lives of hundreds of firefighters, inspectors and workers at risk.

The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Brian J. Fields, laid out the government’s case in his opening statement on the first day of the trial, saying that it was “all about money” and that “the evidence will establish that defendants took that risk for money — they gambled with lives for money.”

The three men, and the demolition contractor for which two of them worked, the John Galt Corporation, are charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.