A Queens, NY technical school that was supposed to have been training laborers to safely remove asbestos helped hundreds of students cheat on their state certification exams, prosecutors said.

The Queens district attorney said the husband and wife owners of the Senagryph Training Facilities gave out answers to anyone who needed them during the tests, including undercover detectives posing as students.

In addition, foreign laborers in the country illegally were encouraged to use fraudulent Social Security numbers to obtain their asbestos removal licenses, the prosecutor said.

Some of those students went on to work on government construction projects that allowed them access to security zones at bridges, tunnels and airports.

An attorney for the owners of the school Juan Herrera, 61, and Julia Herrera, 49, both of Clifton, N.J., said they would fight the charges.

"They deny the allegations and they maintain their innocence,'' said the lawyer, Gary F. Miret.

The state requires certification and special training for workers who remove asbestos because the job, if performed improperly, can be very dangerous. Without extensive precautions, the act of ripping out and discarding asbestos can release clouds of cancer-causing dust.

"The defendants' alleged willingness to circumvent necessary safeguards had the potential of endangering the health, safety and well-being of not just those performing asbestos abatement work but anyone else who might have been working in the area at the time that the work was done,'' said District Attorney Richard A. Brown.

The inspector general of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey initiated the probe and then referred the matter to the district attorney. Brown said the authority discovered that 80 percent or more of the laborers on its projects who had received training at the school had used fraudulent information to obtain their certificates.

The Herreras were arraigned on charges of first-degree falsifying business records, first-degree tampering with public records, and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.

They face up to seven years in prison if convicted.