Firm Fined for Smuggling Toxic Waste : Courts: The trial is the first to result from a tip from Mexican customs officials, who were offered a bribe to let materials into the country.

An El Monte shoe company, its corporate vice president, the firm’s general manager and a trucker pleaded guilty Wednesday in San Diego federal court to charges stemming from a scheme to bribe customs inspectors and ship hazardous waste into Mexico.

The scheme unraveled, prosecutors said, when a Mexican customs inspector who was offered a $200 bribe refused the cash and turned the truck and 1,870 gallons of toxic waste over to U.S. authorities.

The case marks the first hazardous waste prosecution in San Diego federal court prompted by Mexican customs officials, authorities said.

The corporation and each of the three men were charged in a three-count indictment that alleged violations of U.S. pollution laws. Under a plea agreement reached Wednesday, Sbicca of California Inc. pleaded guilty to a sole felony count of illegally transporting hazardous waste.

The company agreed to pay a $50,000 fine. It also agreed to repay the $14,097 that California Department of Toxic Substance Control crews spent testing the waste and the $801 that the U.S. Customs Service spent investigating the case.

Company Vice President Dominic Sbicca, 43, of Monrovia pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of being an accessory after the fact to the illegal exportation of hazardous waste. He agreed to pay a $1,000 fine and perform 200 hours of community service.

Sbicca could draw up to a year in jail when he is sentenced. General Manager Eduardo Reyna, 39, of Anaheim and truck driver Juvenal Cabrera Cruz, 27, of Los Angeles pleaded guilty to a sole misdemeanor count of illegal export of hazardous waste without a proper shipping manifest. Each agreed to pay a $500 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

With the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement on the horizon, prosecutors and environmental officials in San Diego portrayed the guilty pleas as a sign of an increasing U.S.-Mexico commitment to environmental protection.

U.S. Atty. William Braniff said the case is the product of “outstanding and ever-increasing” cooperation between the two nations.

“We’ve got to stop exporting our problems to Mexico,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Marian E. McGuire.

The case involves the chemical waste trichloroethane, which damages the liver and kidneys if it is absorbed through the skin, inhaled or ingested.

The company, which makes women’s shoes, tried to dispose of 1,870 gallons of the waste left by solvents used to clean shoe molds, prosecutors said.

In January, Dominic Sbicca ordered Reyna to get rid of the waste in Mexico to avoid the cost of disposing it properly in the United States, prosecutors said.

The waste was stored in 24 steel 55-gallon drums and 15 cardboard 100-gallon drums, prosecutors said. It would have cost $400 to $600 per barrel to dispose of it in accordance with U.S. laws, officials said.

Reyna gave $900 to Cabrera, with instructions to bribe Mexican officials to smuggle the waste into Mexico, prosecutors said.

On March 22, after hauling the drums to the San Ysidro border crossing, Cabrera offered $200 to Mexican customs inspector Miguel Sanchez Dominguez, McGuire said.