Home >
About FMCSA > Newsroom > Press
Releases
|
|
|
|
Esta página está solamente disponible en inglés
|
|
U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Office of the Secretary -- Office of Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20590
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Thursday, September 30, 1999
Contact: Jeff Nelligan
(202) 366-6312
OIG 15-99
Trash-Hauling Firms
Fined $3.3 Million in Fraud Against U.S. Navy
The U.S. Department of
Transportation Office of Inspector General today
announced
that two Maryland trash-hauling firms were fined a total of $3.3
million
-- a $1.3 million criminal penalty and a $2 million civil fine --
following
their guilty pleas in June to an array of illegal activities
including
false billing to the U.S. Navy of approximately $800,000.
A.W. Stevens and Sons
Waste Disposal Systems, Inc., and St. Mary's
Disposal
Systems, Inc., were handed the fines Friday, Sept. 24 in U.S.
District
Court in Greenbelt, Md. Further, Michael W. Stevens of
Annapolis,
vice-president of the two firms, was ordered to serve five
months
in jail and five months of home monitoring and pay a $30,000 fine.
Three other
defendants sentenced in the case under the Maryland
litter-control
law must pay $20,000 fines to both St. Mary's County and
Prince
George's County in Maryland in connection with the case. They are
Albert
W. Stevens, Susan Goolsby Stevens and Patrick T. Stevens.
An investigation led by
the Navy's Criminal Investigative Service and the
Prince
George's County Department of Public Health revealed that the two
firms
illegally trucked garbage collected from the Navy's Patuxent River
Naval Air
Station, Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station and the U.S. Naval
Academy
in Annapolis to Virginia. The cost to the firms of final dumping
in
Virginia was lower than it would have been in Maryland. However, the
Stevens
companies billed the Navy as if the Maryland rates were being
incurred,
pocketing the difference.
The disposal companies
also operated unlicensed transfer stations for the
moving
of garbage from vehicle to vehicle, creating a public nuisance and
polluting a
tributary of Henson's Creek in Maryland.
The firms pleaded guilty
to federal charges including conspiracy, making
false
claims, making false statements and violation of the Clean Water
Act.
A guilty plea also was entered to a charge of falsifying a statement
to the U.S.
Department of Transportation's Office of Motor Carrier and
Highway
Safety regarding the hours the companies' drivers spent behind the
wheel.
Assisting in the probe
were the DOT Office of Inspector General, the U.S.
Environmental
Protection Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
###
|
|
![Go To Top of Page](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090511160425im_/https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/images/new_style/topArrow.gif)
|
|
|
|