2 Brothers Plead Guilty to Dumping Cyanide Water

Two brothers who operated a North Hollywood plating company that dumped thousands of gallons of cyanide waste water into the Los Angeles sewer system face jail terms after pleading guilty Thursday to recklessly handling and storing hazardous materials.

Yoav (Joe) Pantilant, 52, of Woodland Hills, owner and president of All-American Plating Corp., was sentenced to nine months in jail, fined $10,000 and ordered to clean up the site within six months by Municipal Judge David S. Milton as part of the agreement to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor charges.

His brother, Sarv (Tom) Pantilant, 45, of Saugus, the firm’s general manager, pleaded guilty to the same two charges and, under the plea agreement, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 15 to six months in jail, Deputy Dist. Atty. William W. Carter said.

The brothers had faced one felony count and seven misdemeanor counts involving reckless storage and handling of hazardous materials.

They were the first people in Los Angeles County to be prosecuted under a 10-month-old state law that mandates jail time for improperly storing hazardous materials, Carter said. The law allows authorities to take action against a firm before a potentially hazardous chemical spill occurs, he said.

The now-defunct All-American Plating, which was in the 7100 block of Vineland Avenue, was raided by investigators April 27. The investigators found open and unlabeled tanks of acids stored so close together that an accidental mixture could have formed a deadly vapor cloud, Carter said.

Investigation of the firm began earlier this year when a former employee told authorities that cyanide waste water used during the plating process was being illegally dumped on a daily basis into the city sewer system, Carter said.

Acting on information from the employee, Los Angeles police put the plating company under surveillance and watched while the hazardous material was dumped into a nearby sewer drain through a hose that was extended through a hole in the side of the plant, Carter said. When the dumping was concluded each day, the hose was pulled back into the plant, he said.

“They did it early in the morning--between 5 and 7--in order to avoid detection by inspectors,” Carter said. “They could have been dumping thousands of gallons a day” for as long as nine months.

Carter said the company had equipment to recycle the cyanide waste water but apparently did not use it because it was expensive to operate.

He said investigators documented that the company stopped ordering chemicals for the recycling equipment nine months before the police raid.