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TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram and
Acting Criminal Justice Director Deborah
Gramiccioni announced that the Division
of Criminal Justice Environmental Crimes
Bureau obtained three guilty pleas and four
separate state grand jury indictments in
June.
On
June 16, the Environmental Crimes Bureau
took a guilty plea from Jaclyn Biddle, the
former owner and operator of Children’s
First Learning Center in Mantua. Biddle,
30, of Williamstown, pleaded guilty to an
accusation charging her with the fourth-degree
crime of recklessly creating a risk of widespread
injury or damage. Biddle submitted a fraudulent
test report to the state Department of Children
and Families in June 2005 indicating that
the day care center was free of lead dust.
In fact, an inspection in April 2005 had
revealed numerous areas in which lead paint
dust was above regulatory limits. The accusation
charged that Biddle should have known the
test report she submitted was fraudulent
and that she recklessly put children at
risk by operating the day care center until
August 2007 without informing parents or
the Department of Children and Families
about the high levels of lead paint dust
found in the April 2005 inspection. Under
the plea agreement, the state will recommend
a sentence of probation and a fine of $5,000.
On
June 26, Marilyn J. Clyde, of Moorestown
pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge
Charles A. Delehey in Mercer County to third-degree
tampering with public records. Clyde, the
owner of Garden State Removal Company in
Springfield, admitted she submitted eight
forms with false information to the Burlington
County Resource and Recycling Center. Garden
State Removal was contracted by Florence
Township to collect residential solid waste.
The forms misstated that the solid waste
that Garden State Removal brought to the
recycling center was from Florence, Mt.
Holly or Springfield. An investigation by
the Division of Criminal Justice determined
that between Jan. 11 and March 27, 2007,
Garden State Removal actually brought solid
waste from Shamong to the recycling center,
which was a breach of the contract.
On
June 25, Blue Jay Enterprises, LLC, pleaded
guilty before Superior Court Judge Marilyn
T. Clark in Passaic County to fourth-degree
transporting hazardous waste without a manifest.
Blue Jay Enterprises, a Hercules Enterprises
corporation, admitted to allowing hazardous
waste to be transported from their site
in Hillsborough, Somerset County without
completing and submitting the Hazardous
Waste Manifest to the DEP. The waste was
transported to the Pantasote Factory site
at 26 Jefferson Street in Passaic. The corporation
was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
The
Division of Criminal Justice Environmental
Crimes Bureau obtained the following indictments
on June 4:
State
v. Sun Tzeng. Tzeng, 67, was charged
with two counts of third-degree unlawful
storage of regulated medical waste. The
indictment charges that between June 1998
and October 2007, Tzeng wrongfully stored
regulated medical waste, including used
syringes, haphazardly at his Jersey City
medical office. The waste was allegedly
dumped into open cardboard boxes in treatment
rooms. New Jersey regulations state that
such waste must be stored in containers
that are rigid, leak resistant, impervious
to moisture, sufficiently strong to prevent
tearing or bursting, sealed and puncture
resistant.
State
v. Vincent Granieri and ITL Concrete Recycling.
Granieri, 68, of Haledon and his
company, ITL Concrete Recycling, were charged
with third-degree criminal mischief for
arranging for loads of construction soil
fill material from New York to be illegally
dumped in New Jersey. The indictment charges
that in November 2007, Granieri instructed
independent truck drivers to illegally dump
the material on property at the foot of
Linden Avenue in Jersey City. The property
was operated by New York/New Jersey Cross
Harbor Rail and owned by Conrail, which
was not aware of the scheme.
State
v. Ray Christiansen, Jr. Christiansen, 42,
of Parkesburg, Pa., was charged with third-degree
violation of the Water Pollution Control
Act. Christiansen is a private waste oil
hauler who picks up waste petroleum from
various locations and delivers it to Eldridge,
Inc., in West Chester, Pa. The indictment
alleges that on March 10, Christiansen illegally
discharged oily wastewater from a tanker
truck onto a parking lot which drained to
a storm drain near the intersection of Paulsboro
Road and Rt. 322 in Woolwich Township. An
investigation by Woolwich Township police
department determined that several hundred
gallons of waste may have been discharged
from the truck.
State
v. James and Megan, Inc. James and Megan,
Inc., the corporate owners of the
Waterfront Café, located on Paterson
Plank Road in Carlstadt, were charged with
fourth-degree violation of the Water Pollution
Control Act. According to the indictment,
between January 2002 and August 2006, the
Waterfront Café unlawfully discharged
wastewater from a pipe into the Hackensack
River without a valid permit.
The
Division of Criminal Justice Environmental
Crimes Bureau recently released its 2008
Environmental Crimes Handbook for Law Enforcement
officers. The Handbook, which is distributed
to law enforcement and health officials
throughout the state, contains several new
environmental crimes laws that were enacted
earlier this year in the Environmental Enforcement
Enhancement bill. The handbook can be found
at www.njdcj.org/ecb/ecb-handbook.htm.
The
bill expands civil and administrative penalties
and authority for the DEP, and creates new
environmental crimes in the Coastal Area
Facility Review Act, Waterfront Development
Act, Flood Hazard Area Control Act, Wetlands
Act, Water Supply Management Act, Safe Drinking
Water Act, Pesticide Control Act, and Endangered
and Non-games Species Conservation Act.
It also increases criminal penalties in
the Freshwater Wetlands Act and Safe Dam
Act. These new criminal provisions will
provide prosecutors with additional tools
to use to address serious unlawful activity
that threatens New Jersey's natural resources.
The
investigations were coordinated by Lieutenant
Jeffrey Gross and Detectives Steve Ogulin,
Steve Politowski and Dawn Ryan . Supervising
Deputy Attorney General Ed Bonanno presented
the Clyde, Tzeng, Granieri, Christiansen,
and James and Megan, Inc. cases; Deputy
Attorney General Phillip Leahy presented
the Children’s First case; and Betty
Rodriguez presented the Blue Jay Enterprise
case.
Attorney
General Milgram thanks the following agencies
for their assistance in the investigations:
Department of Children and Families (Children
First); Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor
Medicaid Fraud Unit (Tzeng); Jersey City
Incinerator Authority, Jersey City Police
Department, Passaic County Sheriff’s
Department and Haledon Police Department
(Granieri); Woolwich Police Department and
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Bureau of Emergency Response South (Christiansen);
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
(James and Megan Inc. and Garden State Removal).
The
indictments are merely accusations and the
defendants are presumed innocent until proven
guilty. Third-degree crimes carry a maximum
sentence of five years in state prison and
a fine of $15,000. Fourth-degree crimes
carry a maximum sentence of 18 months in
state prison and a fine of $10,000.
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