Summary

On February 23, David Grummer was sentenced in U.S. District Court, San Diego, California to serve 18 months in custody, fined $3,000, and ordered to pay $92,410 in restitution. This sentencing is the result of Grummer’s guilty plea of distributing unregistered pesticides, unlawful sale of refrigerants, and unlawful transportation of hazardous substances. Mr. Grummer admitted that between April 2005 and January 2008 he sold, over the internet, unregistered pesticides, such as DDT and Chlordane, synthetic pesticides and CFC–12, an ozone depleting substance to people who he knew did not have the required Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certification to purchase CFC–12. Mr. Grummer violated the Hazardous Substances Transportation Act when he shipped the items by utilizing a private commercial interstate carrier and did not properly declare these items as hazardous substances on the shipping papers. Our investigation was conducted jointly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.