In June 2017, the owner of Diamond Environmental Services—a portable toilets company that services California, based out of San Marcos—admitted to illegally dumping wastewater from thousands of his portable toilets into municipal sewer systems.
Arie Eric De Jong III, 50, owner of Diamond Environmental Services, pleaded guilty Friday in San Diego federal court to conspiracy to unlawfully discharge pollutants. The company’s chief operation officer, Warren Van Dam, 50, pleaded guilty to a similar charge last month.
The conspiracy began in 2009. As a regular company practice, the trucks full of waste pumped from portable toilets were dumped into municipal sewers at the company’s various facilities in San Diego, San Marcos, Perris, Fullerton and Huntington Park from 2012 to July 2016.
Employees were directed to design and install the system to make the dumping possible at the facilities, then covered up the sewer connections by placing a portable toilet over them during inspections, according to the plea agreement.
By doing this, Diamond was able to not pay dumping fees, stealing a few million dollars in the process. The hold-up on sentencing had to do with the plea deal signed by the defendants and the possibility of larger, more costly financial penalties being added on.
At a hearing Friday, however, lawyers for the executives and for the company objected to the amount of fines and restitution to be imposed. Plea agreements signed last year show about $250,000 in restitution but prosecutors also want millions of dollars in additional penalties.
Fox 5 San Diego reports that sentences were finally handed down, with De Jong III getting five months of prison time.
Arie Eric De Jong III, who pleaded guilty last year to felony charges related to the unlawful dumping scheme, was ordered to report to federal prison by 5 p.m. on July 6. He was also handed a $15,000 fine and will serve three years’ probation.
Warren Van Dam, the company’s chief operating officer who also admitted to charges related to the illegal dumping, received five years’ probation and 250 hours of community service. He could have received up to six months in custody.
De Jong III was facing a possible 30 months of prison time but his lawyers argued his philanthropic work in the community and his quick contrition to the charges warranted consideration. The deal includes larger restitution from the defendants, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The company, which also pleaded guilty in the case, was similarly sentenced to five years’ probation. The three defendants combined were ordered to pay a fine of $2.64 million and $2.25 million in restitution to five different sanitation agencies. The company also forfeited $2.2 million in illegal profits.
A third Diamond executive, safety and compliance manager Ronald Fabor, was convicted last year on two counts of perjury for lying about the illegal dumping to a grand jury. He already was sentenced to five years probation and fined $500 for his crimes.
Now let’s get North Carolina to give a similar treatment to executives at Duke Energy and their ash wastewater “violations.”