TRENTON
– Attorney General Paula T. Dow and
Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor
announced that Pennsylvania dentist Thomas
W. McFarland Jr. was sentenced today for
dumping the needles and other medical-type
waste that washed up in Avalon during the
last week of August 2008, causing the borough
to close its beaches five times.
According to Director Taylor,
McFarland, 61, of Wynnewood, Pa., was sentenced
to four years of probation by Superior Court
Judge Raymond A. Batten in Cape May County.
McFarland paid $100,000 to the Borough of
Avalon today by cashier’s check as
restitution and as a contribution for environmental
programs and projects, at the discretion
of the Borough.
McFarland pleaded guilty
on March 15 to fourth-degree unlawful discharge
of water pollutants, an amended count of
a state grand jury indictment obtained by
the Division of Criminal Justice on Nov.
18, 2008.
Supervising Deputy Attorney
General Ed Bonanno, head of the Environmental
Crimes Section of the Division of Criminal
Justice Major Crimes Bureau, prosecuted
the case and represented the state at the
sentencing.
McFarland, who owns a house
in the Avalon Manor section of Middle Township,
admitted that he took his small motor boat
into Townsend Inlet at the north end of
Avalon on Aug. 22, 2008, and dumped a bag
of waste from his dental practice in Wynnewood,
Pa.
Beginning the next day,
dental waste was found washed up along a
stretch of beach at the north end of Avalon
between 9th Street and 24th Street. The
waste included approximately 260 “Accuject”
dental-type needles, 180 cotton swabs, a
number of blue and white plastic capsules
used to hold dental filling material, and
other items. Officials in Avalon alerted
the state Department of Environmental Protection,
which notified the Division of Criminal
Justice.
The Division of Criminal
Justice Environmental Crimes Section immediately
commenced an intensive investigation with
the Avalon Police Department and the Cape
May County Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigators from those
agencies, led by the DCJ Environmental Crimes
Section, worked quickly to trace the source
of the dental waste, and the Attorney General’s
Office offered a $10,000 reward for information
leading to an arrest and conviction. Certain
information obtained in the first days of
the investigation pointed to McFarland’s
practice.
Avalon officials recovered
a wrapped dental drill bit bearing a lot
number. Detectives from the Environmental
Crimes Section contacted the manufacturer
and learned McFarland’s practice was
one of a small number of practices in the
Mid-Atlantic States that bought drill bits
from the lot in question. Detectives also
determined that he received promotional
products from Accuject at a time when they
were distributing needles bearing the lot
numbers that washed up in Avalon.
On Sept. 2, 2008, McFarland
went to the Avalon Police Department and
admitted dumping the dental waste. After
searching his beach house, Boston Whaler
boat and SUV in New Jersey, investigators
obtained a search warrant for his dental
office in Pennsylvania and executed it on
Sept. 4. They discovered evidence corroborating
McFarland’s statement that the waste
came from his practice, including drill
bits and Accuject needles bearing the same
lot numbers as those found in Avalon. McFarland
was charged by complaint warrant at that
time and released without bail. The State
of Pennsylvania subsequently suspended his
dental license.
Attorney General Dow credited
the following investigators: From the Division
of Criminal Justice Environmental Crimes
Section, the individuals who led the investigation
were Supervising Deputy Attorney General
Bonanno, Lt. Jeffrey Gross and Detectives
Steven Ogulin, Stephen Politowski and Dawn
Ryan. From the Avalon Police Department,
Chief David Dean, Detective Ben Geary and
the entire department. From the Cape May
County Prosecutor's Office, Chief James
Rybicki, Lt. Lynn Frame and Detective Matthew
Leusner. In Pennsylvania, from the Lower
Merion Township Police Department, Detective
Charles Craig and Officer Michael Stieber,
and the Montgomery County, Pa., District
Attorney's Office, Detective Mike Gilbert.
The speed and effectiveness
of the joint investigation enabled officials
to reassure the public that the wash up
of medical waste in Avalon was an isolated
incident, and that New Jersey’s beaches
are clean and safe. The Attorney General’s
Office emphasized that there had not been
a similar case of a person being charged
with dumping medical waste directly into
the ocean in 20 years.
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