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TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram and
Criminal Justice Director Deborah Gramiccioni
announced that a Sparta man and his company,
a private water testing laboratory, pleaded
guilty today to submitting falsified water
analysis reports to the state Department
of Environmental Protection.
Peter
Dominski, 54, of Sparta, and his company,
Accurate Analytical Laboratories LLC, pleaded
guilty to accusations charging them with
falsifying records, a fourth-degree crime,
before Superior Court Judge N. Peter Conforti
in Sussex County.
Fourth-degree
crimes carry a maximum sentence of 18 months
in prison and a $10,000 fine. Under the
plea agreement, the state will recommend
that Dominski be sentenced to a term of
probation and that he be ordered to pay
a fine of $15,000 to the Department of Environmental
Protection. The DEP previously issued two
administrative orders assessing civil penalties
of $57,000 against Dominski. He will be
required to provide the DEP with access
to all records of Accurate Analytical, which
is no longer in operation.
Dominski
admitted that between March and October
2007, he knowingly submitted false laboratory
reports to the DEP regarding two community
water systems and five private wells in
order to meet state requirements. The reports
on community water systems purportedly gave
levels of radionuclides in water samples
taken from the systems of the Great Gorge
Terrace Association and Strawberry Point
Property Owners. The reports on private
wells purportedly gave levels of iron, manganese
and lead in water from the five private
wells in Andover, Sandyston, Sussex, White
Township and Budd Lake.
An
investigation by the DEP and the Division
of Criminal Justice Environmental Crimes
Bureau revealed that Dominski submitted
lab reports to the DEP for the two community
water systems that were not based on water
samples from those systems. The reports
came from an independent lab that Dominski
regularly used for such analysis. However,
investigators determined that he altered
the reports to make DEP believe they were
for the water systems named, when they actually
reflected other water sources. For the private
wells, Dominski filed false test results
electronically with the DEP and also provided
false data to the property owners on a form
that is required under state law when properties
with wells are sold.
The
DEP began investigating after it received
the reports from Accurate Analytical on
the two community water systems and noted
that the radiological levels were unusually
low compared to prior levels reported for
those systems. The DEP reviewed other submissions
from Accurate Analytical and discovered
that additional lab reports had been falsified.
The
DEP subsequently sent letters to the residential
customers of Accurate Analytical recommending
that they have their wells tested to ensure
the safety of their water.
Detective
Dawn Ryan conducted the investigation for
the Division of Criminal Justice Environmental
Crimes Bureau, in coordination with Supervising
Deputy Attorney General Ed Bonanno and Deputy
Attorney General Betty Rodriguez. Bonanno
and Rodriguez prosecuted the case and took
today’s guilty pleas. Debra Waller
from the Office of Quality Assurance, Betty
Boros-Russo and Karen Fell from Water Supply
Operations, and Maria Coppola from the Northern
Bureau of Water Compliance and Enforcement
investigated for the Department of Environmental
Protection. Attorney General Milgram thanked
the DEP for its referral and extensive assistance
in the case.
In
2008, the Division, for Environmental Crimes,
obtained 26 indictments and accusations,
filed one warrant complaint, and secured
four prison sentences. Successful Division
environmental prosecutions in 2008 also
resulted in over $140,000 in fines and restitution.
In addition to its investigative/prosecutorial
work, the Division also coordinated the
criminal enforcement efforts of the County
Prosecutors and the DEP and the Marine Bureau
of the State Police, and provided technical
and legal assistance to the Prosecutors’
Offices, as well as to local law enforcement.
Judge
Conforti scheduled sentencing for the defendants
for Feb. 27.
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