September 30, 2009

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.

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