Irvine’s Diceon Faces Felony Toxic Waste Charges : Pollution: Circuit board manufacturer is accused of releasing acid, lead, copper and other materials into the sewage system.

Diceon Electronics Inc. and its two top executives are facing felony charges of illegal discharge of toxic wastes at a manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, in an example of authorities’ willingness to use criminal sanctions against alleged corporate polluters.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged in a complaint filed Tuesday that Irvine-based Diceon, one of the country’s leading independent manufacturers of circuit boards, illegally released large amounts of acid, lead, copper and other toxic materials into the sewage system from November, 1988, to April of this year.

The complaint comes after a $262,000 fine levied against the firm by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in June for failure to report the nature and amount of toxic chemicals released into the air, water and ground in 1987.

The fine was the largest penalty proposed for any of 42 companies cited by the EPA for such violations. Diceon said at the time it would appeal the EPA action.

Tuesday’s complaint includes seven felony charges and four misdemeanor charges for unlawful disposal of toxic waste and related violations, all of which name the company and its former director of manufacturing, Richard Thomas.

Diceon president Roland G. Matthews and executive vice president Peter S. Jonas are named in one felony count and four misdemeanor counts. They are charged with violations that allegedly took place after upper management had been alerted to the problem by a County Department of Public Works search of the facility in January.

A Diceon statement said the company had taken the corrective actions that had been approved by the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for monitoring sewage discharges.

The firm had hoped that its corrections would prevent a criminal complaint, the statement said, adding that the company “does not feel that it or any of the individuals violated any criminal statute, and the company expects full vindication in court.”

David Guthman, head of the district attorney’s environmental crimes division, said the filing of felony charges is an indication that his office judged the illegal discharges to be “egregious and done knowingly and willingly.”

Guthman estimated that there are about a half-dozen felony disposal cases pending in Los Angeles courts and added that 11 businessmen have gone to jail in the last year for environmental crimes.

Until the last several years, he said, civil enforcement actions had generally been used in environmental cases, but the prosecutor’s office has now “picked up the pace” on criminal prosecutions.

He called environmental crimes of this type “crimes of violence” in the which “the dead bodies might not start showing up for 20, 30 or 40 years.” For one of the pollutants--copper--Guthman said the level of discharges monitored were more than 200 times the legal limit.

Penalties for felony disposal of hazardous waste are 16 months to three years in prison, plus fines of $5,000 to $100,000 for each count.

Diceon has suffered financial reversals in recent months that it attributed to the broad slowdown in computer sales. The company recently shut down a manufacturing plant in Santa Ana.

The firm reported a $2.3-million loss for the year ended Sept. 30, against net income of $9.9 million for the year earlier. Revenue dropped 16%, to $118.7 million.