Lavelle’s Conviction for Perjury Upheld by Appeals Court Panel

A U.S. Court of Appeals panel Friday upheld the conviction of Rita M. Lavelle, the former Environmental Protection Agency official who was convicted of lying to Congress, and said that she had not been sabotaged by her agency’s lawyers.

The three-member panel, in a 27-page opinion written by Judge Edward Allen Tamm, affirmed Lavelle’s perjury conviction, as well as her six-month prison sentence and $10,000 fine.

Lavelle, the former head of EPA’s “superfund” cleanup program, argued before the appeals court that the agency’s attorneys had a “professional duty” to inform her that they suspected she had submitted a false statement to Congress.

The statement, drafted by EPA lawyers and signed by Lavelle, said she had learned on June 17, 1982, that her former employer, Aerojet-General Corp., was involved in a California waste dump that the EPA was considering as a cleanup project. Lavelle said EPA lawyers believed that the correct date on which she had learned of the involvement was May 28, 1982.

Her December, 1983, conviction and prison sentence centered on that statement and her congressional testimony that she did not learn of Aerojet’s involvement until June 17.

In the appeals court ruling, Tamm said that Lavelle’s “vague allegations that she was ‘duped’ into signing the Statement of Certification is directly contradicted by her own testimony.”

‘Stood by Statement’

“In an affidavit to the trial court, Lavelle swore that she still believed that statement was true,” the appeals court said. “During cross-examination, Lavelle stated she stood by the statement as an accurate account of the events as she understood them at the time she signed the statement.

“It is, therefore, difficult to conceive how Lavelle could have been duped into signing a statement which, after almost two years of cool reflection, she still believes to be true.”

Of the more than 20 EPA officials who left under a cloud of accusations, Lavelle was the only one indicted.