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Doylestown Man Sentenced to 60 Months in Jail Following Federal Conviction in Hazardous Waste/Drug Case

Release Date: 8/24/2000
Contact Information: Donna Heron, 215-814-5113

Donna Heron, 215-814-5113

PHILADELPHIA – Manfred Derewal, Jr. has been sentenced in federal court to five years in jail and five years probation. He was also ordered to pay $14,867 to the EPA in restitution and a $1,000 fine.

Derewal has been in prison since his June 1998 conviction. The judge ordered that his time served will be applied to the 60 month sentence.

Derewal was convicted after a five-day trial of storing approximately 50 drums of ignitable and corrosive hazardous waste without a permit from 1987 to 1994 at part of the former Chem-Fab metals processing facility in Doylestown.

The waste had been generated by the defendant between 1982 and 1987 when he operated a metals processing company, Electronic Metals Corp., at part of the Chem-Fab plant. The jury also convicted the defendant of attempting to manufacture methamphetamine. Derewal had been acquitted of possession of methylamine, a listed chemical EPA performed a Superfund response action at the Chem-Fab site in 1995, disposing of drums of hazardous substances and approximately 8,000 gallons of hazardous waste located in a 50-foot underground storage tank.

In 1998 Hans Richard Becker, former vice president of Chem-Fab, Inc., pleadced guilty to one count of storing chromium-laden hazardous waste in the underground storage tank prior to closing the plant in the fall of 1993.

This case was investigated by EPA’s criminal investigation division, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia with assistance from EPA’s regional legal office.