Cayuga County, New York – John Chick, the former Cayuga County carpenter who was convicted of conspiring to violate the Federal Clean Air Act, has said that he has stepped up and admitted his mistake, and that now it’s time for others involved in the illegal asbestos removal to do the same.

John Chick was sentenced to fifteen months in prison after pleading guilty to illegal asbestos removal and will begin serving his sentence on May 20. In addition to the fifteen month prison sentence, a further sentence of three years supervision following his release from prison, as well as ordering him to pay a total of $108,000 restitution, to cover the costs of cleaning up the asbestos waste.

The incident for which Chick received the sentence took place during February 2006, when he illegally displaced and removed asbestos-containing materials from the Cayuga County Board of Elections building.

However, Chick claimed he had not acted alone, but had been told to remove the asbestos by his supervisors. Chick’s defense attorney named two other people who he claimed should have shouldered some of the responsibility for the illegal asbestos removal.

One of these was former Building and Grounds Superintendent Ernie DeCaro, who had testified to knowing about the illegal asbestos removal. DeCaro claimed that he had told Cayuga County Legislator George Fearon. However, Fearon denied having any knowledge of the activities.

Earlier this week, Chick said that it was time for other people involved in the incident to admit their responsibility, including George Fearon, who Chick claims to have told about the asbestos before removing it.

Chick says he told Fearon in February 2006 before removing the asbestos that there was a “probability” that asbestos was present in the insulation surrounding the pipes. Fearon, however, claims that he had no idea asbestos had been removed from the area illegally until the June 2006 investigation of the incident.

In response, Chick claimed that Fearon had given conflicting testimony and that Fearon knew what Chick was doing about the asbestos insulation. Chick said he had showed Fearon the material and said it could contain asbestos, and that they spoke about the problem for an hour or longer.

Fearon said the conversation lasted only a few minutes, and also said he may have known asbestos was present, but had no idea that Chick had planned to remove it. Fearon said he believed the asbestos would not be touched and therefore wouldn’t be a problem.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Asbestos Exposure, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.