‘60 Minutes’ E-Cycler Guilty of Shipping Hazardous CRTs to China

A 12-member jury in U.S. District Court, Denver, found Richter and Olson guilty on eight of 15 counts of violating the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and committing mail and wire fraud to falsely promote themselves nationally as recyclers who would dispose of the e-waste responsibly, court documents show. Congress enacted the RCRA “to require a safe means of managing hazardous waste from cradle to grave, including its generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and ultimate disposal,” prosecutors said in their September 2011 indictment (http://xrl.us/bn73ek).

Instead, between 2005 and 2008, the indictment alleged, Richter and Olson shipped at least 1.6 million CRTs to China in violation of the RCRA. Officials at the Basel Action Network (BAN), which pushed for the EPA investigation that led to the indictment and the 60 Minutes expose, have said the case against Richter and Olson was the first known federal e-waste prosecution under the RCRA. In a statement, BAN Executive Director Jim Puckett hailed the convictions as “very welcome,” but a drop in the bucket in thwarting “other fake recyclers out there that are loading up Asian-bound containers full of our old toxic TVs and computers."

On an average day, “about 100 containers of toxic e-waste arrive in the Port of Hong Kong alone,” Puckett said. “We hope this conviction sends a very strong message to business and the public that they should only use the most responsible recyclers,” those that have landed BAN’s coveted e-Stewards certification, he said. After their indictment, Richter and Olson left Executive Recycling, which has since been renamed Techcycle. Techcycle representatives didn’t reply to our queries.

During the 15-day trial that began Dec. 3, court documents show, prosecutors called 41 witnesses against Richter and Olson, including three Hong Kong environmental officials who testified through video depositions that they had seized the CRTs that Executive Recycling had shipped. Defense lawyers called six witnesses to the stand, including Richter and Olson to testify on their own behalf.

Drama gripped the trial on its fifth day when lawyers for Richter asked to withdraw from the case, citing unspecified conflicts of interest stemming from a joint defense agreement (JDA) they had signed with Olson’s attorneys 18 months earlier, court documents show. Details on the alleged conflicts remain sealed under the JDA, but U.S. District Judge William Martinez ruled against Richter’s lawyers withdrawing because he found no basis for the conflicts claim and that granting their motion would have resulted in an unwarranted mistrial.

In his denial, Martinez said the controversy cropped up when Executive Recycling finance executive Jessica Goetzfried testified Dec. 6 that the company’s invoices had been “altered” to hide its CRT shipments to China. According to the Martinez ruling, Richter’s lawyers wanted out because “if the Government was going to pursue a theory that invoices had been altered or manipulated, it would place Defendants Richter and Olson at odds with each other because only a limited number of employees at Executive Recycling had access to the company’s accounting software.” In the end, the jury convicted Richter, but acquitted Olson, on the only count of altering, destroying or concealing company records to hide from the authorities the illegal CRT shipments, court documents show. Lawyers for Richter and Olson didn’t comment on the verdicts or whether they planned to appeal.