Executive Gets Stiff Term in Toxic Dumping : Environment: The former vice president of a paint plant is given three years in prison. Lawyer says his client is being used as a scapegoat.

A former Anaheim paint plant executive was sentenced to three years in state prison Friday for ordering his employees to secretly mix hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals with ordinary trash that ended up in a county landfill.

Prosecutors said it was the longest sentence ever given to a toxic polluter in California and the first prison term for illegal dumping ever handed out by a judge in Orange County. Even before the sentencing, the case had been watched because it has created lingering fear about the effect of the toxic chemicals on the county’s ground water supply.

Marion Bruce Hale, 45, of Brea, the manager and former vice president of the Anaheim plant of Chicago-based W.C. Richards Co., sat motionless as Superior Court Judge William W. Bedsworth announced the three-year prison sentence and a fine of $26,000.

The judge said probation was inappropriate because Hale’s actions could cause “great bodily harm to a multitude of people.” He said he did not intend the sentence as a message to other polluters.

“I don’t use people to send messages,” the judge said. “What you did was a terrible thing and you must pay for it.”

The charges carried a maximum penalty of six years in prison, but Bedsworth imposed a lighter term because many letters of support for Hale--which he said he found “moving and impressive”--convinced him that the “terrible things” that Hale did were out of character.

Hale will remain in jail until a bail hearing Tuesday. He plans to appeal his conviction and sentence.

Hale’s attorney, John E. Burns of Los Angeles, argued that Hale, a devoted family man and ex-Marine, was made a scapegoat and should not have been given a prison term.

“I was shocked by the sentence,” said Burns, adding that he had hoped that his client would get probation or a work furlough program.

The W.C. Richards Co., which has agreed to pay a $250,000 fine, is in the process of closing its operation in Anaheim. It operates two others outside California.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gerald G. Johnston said it is important for government to ferret out toxic dumpers, convict them and make sure they receive tough sentences. He has said that if the company had legally disposed of the chemicals in special waste dumps, it would have cost the firm several thousand dollars per week.

“This case is a victory for the environment,” Johnston said after the hearing.

Health officials have called the case one of the most serious of its kind in Orange County because of the large amounts of toxics involved and the threat they posed to the county’s ground water.

Because 70% of all drinking water in Anaheim comes from wells, many fear that the toxics dumped in the landfill could migrate into the ground water, said Anaheim Deputy Fire Marshal Jamie Hirsch, who is in charge of the Fire Department’s hazardous materials unit.

The criminal charges were triggered more than two years ago by an informant who called Anaheim fire officials.

As part of the investigation, the city of Anaheim sent garbage trucks to the plant in the 1100 block of North Olive to pick up the dumpsters. Tests of the trash showed high concentrations of toxic metals, including lead and zinc, and chlorinated solvents, such as ethylbenzene, which are suspected cancer-causing agents.

W.C. Richards employees told investigators that 150 to 300 gallons of hazardous waste were illegally thrown into the trash daily.

But the defense has argued that the materials found were not hazardous waste and that authorities had improperly obtained and handled the samples. The defense also produced four former employees who disputed the testimony of the other workers by saying that Hale was not responsible for the disposal of the waste.