Yutaka manufacturer, managers sentenced for environmental crimes

WASHINGTON — 11.28.12 — An auto parts man­u­fac­turer and two of its for­mer man­agers were sen­tenced Wednes­day on fed­eral charges for mak­ing false state­ments regard­ing the dis­charge of indus­trial waste­water Cardington’s waste­water treat­ment system.

Card­ing­ton Yutaka Tech­nolo­gies Inc. (CYT), an auto parts man­u­fac­turer, and a wholly owned sub­sidiary of Yutaka Giken Com­pany Lim­ited based in Japan, was ordered Wednes­day to pay a fine of $1.2 mil­lion, pay resti­tu­tion in the amount of $115,000 to the vil­lage of Card­ing­ton, and make $400,000 in com­mu­nity ser­vice pay­ments, also to the village.

The com­mu­nity ser­vice funds will be used to repair, improve and ren­o­vate the village’s waste­water treat­ment plant. The com­pany also will serve a term of pro­ba­tion of two years, and make sev­eral oper­a­tional changes to ensure com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble state and fed­eral water pol­lu­tion laws.

CYT was indicted on fed­eral charges on June 29, 2011, as were two for­mer managers.

CYT’s for­mer exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, Muhammed Razavi, pleaded guilty to two counts of neg­li­gently vio­lat­ing the Clean Water Act. Con­sis­tent with his plea agree­ment, Razavi was sen­tenced to 90 days incar­cer­a­tion, fol­lowed by a term of one year of super­vised release, and 208 hours of com­mu­nity ser­vice. Razavi was also ordered to pay a fine of $25,000.

CYT’s for­mer main­te­nance man­ager, James Car­roll, pleaded guilty to one count of neg­li­gently vio­lat­ing the Clean Water Act. In accor­dance with his plea agree­ment, Car­roll was sen­tenced to two years of pro­ba­tion, includ­ing 90 days of home con­fine­ment, and he is to com­plete 500 hours of com­mu­nity ser­vice. Car­roll was ordered to pay a fine of $5,000.

Accord­ing to doc­u­ments filed with the court, between 1999 and 2008, CYT and its man­agers made false state­ments to the Ohio EPA and the vil­lage of Card­ing­ton regard­ing the dis­charge of indus­trial waste­water in the form of leak test fluid and parts washer water from the CYT facil­ity to the vil­lage of Cardington’s Pub­licly Owned Treat­ment Works.

“To pre­vent dis­charges of untreated sewage into the nation’s water­ways, it is crit­i­cal that local sewage treat­ment plants and reg­u­la­tory agen­cies know what indus­tries are send­ing into the pub­lic sew­ers,” said Ran­dall Ashe, Spe­cial Agent-in-Charge of U.S. EPA’s Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Divi­sion in Chicago. “The defen­dants sen­tenced today con­cealed what they were dump­ing into the sewer, mis­lead­ing both the Vil­lage of Card­ing­ton and the Ohio EPA. These con­vic­tions demon­strate that those who engage in such decep­tion will be prosecuted.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.