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PENNSYLVANIA COMPANY AND MANAGERS PLEAD GUILTY
Release Date: 04/16/99
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1999
PENNSYLVANIA COMPANY AND MANAGERS PLEAD GUILTY
Multi-Flow Dispensers of Huntingdon Valley, Pa., and the company’s majority owner Bernard Gottleib, General Manager Nicholas Sciarato, and employee David Haigh all pleaded guilty on April 8 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Multi-Flow, Gottleib and Sciarato pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act. Haigh pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act. In their pleas the defendants admitted to attempting to avoid the cost of proper waste disposal. This was attempted by trucking industrial waste from the company’s syrup manufacturing plant in Huntingdon Valley to a leased building at the former Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia in 1994. The waste was then dumped into a drainage pit which connected to a storm drain that emptied into the Frankford Inlet which is a tributary of the Delaware River. In its plea agreement Multi-Flow agreed to pay a $480,000 criminal fine and contribute an additional $100,000 to the City of Philadelphia Water Department’s “Cross-Connection Repair Program” which helps reduce pollutants entering rivers and streams from storm sewers. Final acceptance of the fine and sentencing of the other defendants is at the discretion of the Court. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI with the assistance of the city of Philadelphia Water Department. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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