Chemical Firm Owner Sentenced to Jail, Fine

The owner of a Sun Valley chemical manufacturing company was sentenced to 60 days in County Jail and fined $15,000 Friday after pleading no contest to 10 misdemeanor charges of state radiation-control violations and fire-code violations.

Riad M. Ahmed, 46, owner of California Bionuclear Corp., also was ordered by Los Angeles Municipal Judge Elva R. Soper to perform 500 hours of community service, Deputy City Atty. Keith W. Pritsker said.

Pritsker said he believes it is the first time anyone has been sentenced to jail for violations of the radiation-control laws.

Ahmed, of Culver City, was arrested last July after being charged in a 90-count complaint that stemmed from a Jan. 17, 1986, raid on his San Fernando Road plant. As part of a plea bargain with prosecutors, Ahmed, who is free on bail, pleaded no contest to 10 of the counts.

Pritsker said the laboratory, which has since been closed, should never have been allowed to operate because it was a quarter of a mile from an elementary school and about 100 feet from a residential area.

“He was in the wrong zone, the whole lab was bootlegged, it never should have been built there to begin with,” Pritsker said. “And he did not consider the threat that his operation posed toward the community in which it existed.”

The lab also posed health hazards to employees because chemicals were improperly stored and mishandled, Pritsker said. The violations were discovered, he said, on a routine inspection by city firefighters, who found volatile chemicals that could have threatened lives had they leaked.

Substances discovered in the lab included explosive chemicals that are more flammable than gasoline, Pritsker said.

Also, carbon 14, a radioactive material, was found leaking from the laboratory into a plumbing business next door, Pritsker said.

Ahmed should have stored the chemicals in explosion-proof refrigerators and flameproof cabinets, Pritsker said. The lab also should have been outfitted with explosion-proof electrical plugs, he said.

The fine must be paid to the city Fire and Police departments and the Los Angeles County Health Services Department, which all participated in the $200,000 cleanup, Pritsker said.