Man Gets Probation for Fatal Lab Explosion
A Moorpark man was fined $5,000 and sentenced to one year of probation Monday in the 1994 blast that killed two scientists at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Chatsworth.
James F. Weber, 52, the first former Rocketdyne employee to be sentenced in the case, pleaded guilty last August to one misdemeanor count of unlawfully storing explosive materials.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Timlin imposed the sentence.
Weber’s co-defendants, Joseph E. Flanagan, 61, of Stanwood, Wash., and Edgar R. Wilson, 65, of Chatsworth, were accused of illegally burning chemical waste at the field laboratory on July 21 and 26, 1994. Flanagan, then director of Rocketdyne’s Chemical Technology Group, was also charged with illegal waste storage.
Flanagan pleaded guilty in June to two misdemeanor counts. Wilson faces trial on Feb. 11.
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