United States Attorney's Office District of Connecticut
Press Release

TYCO SUBSIDIARY THAT VIOLATED THE FEDERAL CLEAN WATER ACT IS SENTENCED
$10 Million is largest fine for an environmental crime in New England

The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced that TYCO PRINTED CIRCUIT GROUP, of Stafford, Connecticut ("TYCO"), a subsidiary of Tyco International, was sentenced today in Hartford federal court. On April 29, 2004, TYCO pleaded guilty to 12 felony counts of violating the federal Clean Water Act at three Connecticut facilities between 1999 and 2001.

In proceedings today in Hartford federal court, Senior United States District Judge Alfred V. Covello ordered TYCO to pay a fine of $10 million and to submit to independent audits of its Connecticut facilities. TYCO will pay $6 million in criminal fines and $4 million toward the following environmentally beneficial programs: (1) $2.7 million to the Connecticut DEP's natural resources fund; (2) $1.0 million to the Town of Stafford and the Town of Manchester ($500,000 each) to fund improvements to each town's sewer and water treatment system; and (3) $300,000 to recycle deionized and other wastewater at TYCO's Stafford and Staffordville facilities.

According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, TYCO acknowledged that the company committed a range of environmental crimes at TYCO's facilities in Manchester, Stafford, and Staffordville, Connecticut, with the knowledge and active participation of the company's environmental managers, notably Daniel Callahan, head of Environmental Health and Safety, Anthony Dadalt, waste treatment supervisor, and Robert Smith, waste treatment supervisor. For example, in 2000 and 2001, at the now vacant Manchester plant, TYCO regularly bypassed equipment designed to treat wastewater and reduce levels of copper, lead and other toxic substances. The company used the bypass in order to avoid slowing production and to ease pressure on the overburdened waste treatment system. Although TYCO was required to seek prior approval for any such bypasses from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection ("DEP"), the company ignored that requirement until it was caught in the act of bypassing by a DEP inspector in the Spring of 2001. Shortly thereafter, the DEP conducted surreptitious monitoring in the sewer downstream of the Manchester facility and found high levels of lead and copper. On June 6, 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency executed a federal search warrant at the facility.

TYCO has also admitted that its Manchester employees carried out a scheme in which they failed to report discharges from a waste treatment "batch tank." Under a discharge permit issued by the DEP, TYCO was required to treat wastewater in the batch tank until it could be discharged within permit limits. The permit further required TYCO to monitor and report discharges of the batch tank each month. Again, TYCO ignored these requirements, sometimes discharging the batch tank when sampling indicated that permit limits had not been met, and other times discharging without sampling at all. To conceal these discharges, TYCO employees, including Callahan, assisted in preparing false reports to the DEP that indicated that no discharge of the batch tank had occurred.

The activities described above were part of a broader scheme carried out by TYCO's environmental managers between 1999 and June 2001 at each of the three Connecticut facilities to avoid reporting permit violations, particularly regarding toxic metals and pH. To effectuate the illegal scheme, which Callahan orchestrated, Dadalt and Smith used several different tactics including:

• the screening of composite samples so that TYCO could identify samples that would reveal violations of the company's discharge permit;
• the dilution of potentially noncompliant wastewater samples in order to prepare watered-down and thus seemingly compliant samples, which resulted in TYCO reporting false and misleading test results to the DEP;
• the discarding of composite samples with excessive levels of toxic metals and the submission of unrepresentative test results to the DEP on subsequently prepared compliant samples;
• the screening of wastewater samples for pH, such that noncomplying pH results were simply omitted from the pH range reported to the DEP.

Callahan, Dadalt and Smith previously pleaded guilty to felony Clean Water Act violations. On July 30, 2004, Chief United States District Judge Robert N. Chatigny sentenced Smith to one year of probation. Dadalt and Callahan are currently scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Chatigny on August 20 and August 31, respectively. Each faces a sentence of up to three years of imprisonment and a maximum fine of $250,000.

The government is unaware of any environmental harm attributable to TYCO's conduct. Nevertheless, it is impossible to fully assess the potential impact of these crimes on the environment because the scheme was intended to conceal the actual pollutant levels in TYCO's discharges.

"The $10 million that Tyco has agreed to pay marks the largest criminal resolution in any environmental crimes prosecution in the New England region. This penalty, and the previous convictions in this case, reveals that this office is committed to vigorously enforcing federal environmental laws," the United States Attorney stated.

"The scope of these crimes demonstrates an indifference to the requirements of our country's environmental laws," added Michael E. Hubbard, Special Agent in Charge of EPA's Criminal Investigation Division. "We will make sure that polluters get the message."

This case was investigated by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency with assistance from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Brian E. Spears and Special Assistant United States Attorney Peter Kenyon.

CONTACT:

U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
Tom Carson
(203) 821-3722
thomas.carson@usdoj.gov