Source: United States Department of Justice News
U.S. District Court Judge John T. Fowlkes Jr. of the Western District of Tennessee today sentenced DiAne Gordon, 61, of Memphis, Tennessee, to 36 months in prison followed by two years’ supervised release in connection with her fabrication of discharge monitoring reports required under the Clean Water Act and the submission of those fraudulent documents to state regulators in Tennessee and Mississippi. The court further ordered Gordon to pay restitution in the amount of $222,388. On the fraud count, Gordon was sentenced to 26 months in prison, and she received an additional 10 months’ incarceration on the related probation revocation for having engaged in the criminal conduct while on supervision.
According to court documents and information in the public record, Gordon was the co-owner and chief executive officer of Environmental Compliance and Testing (ECT). ECT held itself out to the public as a full-service environmental consulting firm and offered, among other things, sampling and testing of stormwater, process water and wastewater.
Customers, typically concrete companies, hired ECT to take samples and analyze them in a manner consistent with Clean Water Act permit requirements. Gordon claimed to gather and send the samples to a full-service environmental testing laboratory. The alleged results were memorialized in lab reports and chain of custody forms submitted to two state agencies, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), to satisfy permit requirements. In reality, Gordon fabricated the test results and related reports. She even forged documents from a reputable testing laboratory in furtherance of her crime. Gordon then billed her clients for the sampling and analysis. Law enforcement and regulators quickly determined that Gordon created and submitted, or caused to be submitted, at least 405 false lab reports and chain of custody forms from her company in Memphis to state regulators since 2017.
“Today’s sentence appropriately reflects the harm caused by Gordon’s betrayal of her position of trust and her fraud upon her customers, the regulatory authorities, and the citizens of Tennessee and Mississippi,” said Assistant Attorney Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“The Clean Water Act ensures that water quality is maintained throughout the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph C. Murphy Jr. for the Western District of Tennessee. “Correct and accurate test results of discharges into rivers and stream and the honest reporting of those results to regulatory authorities are important parts of the Act’s regulatory framework. Without accurate test results and reporting of those results, the Clean Water Act will not work as Congress intended. Because honest reporting of this data is so important to the functioning of the Act, our office will vigorously prosecute individuals who falsely report test results.”
“Today’s sentence should be a reminder to those who choose to undermine the public’s confidence in our nation’s water quality for their own financial gain will be vigorously prosecuted,” said Special Agent in Charge Charles Carfagno of the Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division’s (EPA-CID) Southeast Area Branch. “We commend the assistance of our state partners with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for their substantial assistance throughout this investigation.”
EPA-CID investigated the case. MDEQ and TDEC provided invaluable assistance to federal law enforcement officers.
Trial Attorney Banumathi Rangarajan of the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Dean DeCandia and Principal Deputy Criminal Chief Carroll Andre for the Western District of Tennessee prosecuted the case.