Prosecutor Calls Case ‘Not a Strong One’ : Illegal Dumper Put on Probation

All criminal charges were dismissed Wednesday against the owner of a Northridge company accused of dumping industrial waste into sewers. But, in an agreement with prosecutors, the owner’s company, Pelland Pumping Co., pleaded no contest to one felony count and was placed on a year’s probation.

If terms of the probation are met, the felony will be reduced to a misdemeanor, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael L. Burke ruled.

Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Sorrentino said that “serious evidentiary questions” prevented further prosecution of owner Randy Singer, 27, and his company, Pelland Pumping Co.

Singer and the company had both been ordered to stand trial on two felony counts of transporting hazardous waste and disposing of it at a site where that was not permitted, and one misdemeanor count each of hauling the material without a required hazardous-waste manifest, a document identifying waste, its source and its destination.

Firm Is Fined

A fine of $1,000 was levied against the company Wednesday. The firm was also ordered to pay for the investigation, estimated to have cost $2,000, that followed Pelland’s dumping of clay into sewage manholes on Peoria Street. The clay was later found to contain high levels of lead and small amounts of other toxics.

Prosecutors entered into the agreement to head off a lengthy trial and to “go on to other matters involving more heavyweight dumpers,” Sorrentino said.

Besides, he said, the case was not a strong one.

For example, Sorrentino said, a laboratory commissioned to examine the waste was not certified by the state at the time; thus, the results of the tests could be challenged in court.

Also, argued Frederic J. Warner, attorney for Singer and his company, it had never been established that Singer knew that the waste was hazardous and had to be dumped at a licensed site.

The case stemmed from a May 17, 1985, incident in which police and city and county health inspectors witnessed a Pelland truck driver dumping the waste into the sewer after he had picked it up from Judy of California Inc., a Sun Valley ceramics firm. The driver was not charged.

Judy of California executives, who also were never charged, said the firm did not know the waste was classified as hazardous.