Opinion ID: 572629
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Infectious Medical Waste Scheme

Text: 13 In addition to the A & A illegal landfill, Paccione and Vulpis, along with McDonald, engaged in an unlawful scheme with respect to the disposal of infectious or red-bag medical waste. Throughout the period covered by the indictment, the State had stringent regulations with respect to the disposal of such waste. Haulers of red-bag waste were required, inter alia, to be specially licensed by SDEC, to transport the waste in properly licensed and marked vehicles, and to store the waste only in specified locations and only for a limited time. Transfer of permits between companies was not allowed. Beginning in August 1988, SDEC required an applicant for permits to include background information on its individual owners in order to permit SDEC to determine whether those who owned and operated the company had previously committed environmental offenses. In November 1988, the penalties for improper transportation, storage, and disposal of infectious medical waste were increased significantly. Unlike prior statutes, the new red-bag law subjected doctors and medical facilities to potential strict liability if their red-bag waste were mishandled in any way, including civil penalties of up to $50,000 per day and criminal sanctions that included prison terms. 14 In 1988, Paccione, Vulpis, and McDonald formed defendant New York Environmental Contractors, Inc. (Environmental Contractors), for the commercial collection of red-bag and other medical waste. Environmental Contractors began publicizing the new penalties and advertising itself as a properly licensed infectious waste transporter upon which doctors and hospitals could rely to avoid mishandling and liability. It ran full-page advertisements in The New York Doctor, a health-related publication, and mailed copies to as many as 1,000 doctors and hospitals. One such advertisement read, in pertinent part, as follows: 15 NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE 16 ---------- 17 (Emphasis in original.) Vulpis and McDonald also mailed leaflets to prospective clients explaining the new civil and criminal penalties for improper disposal of infectious waste and describing how Environmental Contractors would comply with all of the rules and regulations governing the disposal of such waste. The leaflets maintained, inter alia, that 18 N.Y. Environmental Contractor's Corporation is fully insured and licensed to handle the collection, transportation and disposal of ... infectious material.... 19 Our organization was established with the moral and ethical convictions to [sic ] proper handling of infectious waste removal and that it is to be managed is [sic ] a safe and non-hazardous manner. These convictions lead us in our decisions to maintain rigid and concise measures in the removal and disposal of infectious waste material. Our company has trained personnel who are health orientated [sic ] and environment conscious. We are deeply committed to obtaining a non-hazardous-environment, where infectious waste removal and disposal is involved. 20 Contrary to its representations, Environmental Contractors was neither properly licensed, nor ethical, nor competent. All of its permits were either bogus or obtained by forgery and fraud. It fabricated its first SDEC infectious waste transporter permit by pasting the name New York Environmental Contractors onto a permit previously issued to August Recycling, Inc. Environmental Contractors then mailed copies of this document to several doctors who had asked to see its permit before hiring the company. When Environmental Contractors submitted an application to obtain its own first SDEC transporter permit, McDonald forged the signature of a Pennsylvania incinerator manager supposedly certifying that the incinerator had agreed to accept Environmental Contractors's infectious waste for disposal. In October 1988, when Environmental Contractors was applying to SDEC for an amended permit, though McDonald, Paccione, and Vulpis had represented to banks and other regulatory bodies that they each owned one-third of Environmental Contractors, McDonald represented in the application that he was the sole owner of the company, presumably to conceal the financial interests of Paccione and Vulpis who were then under investigation for their roles in the A & A dump. 21 Environmental Contractors's operations were no better than its acquisition of permits. For example, on September 16, 1988, SDEC officer James Milewski saw a Vulpis company truck parked outside of National in a commercial and residential area. Though the truck was not authorized on any SDEC permit to transport infectious medical waste, it contained improperly unmarked barrels of infectious waste and 245 boxes of such waste. This waste, which Environmental Contractors had collected from its customers and had transferred to the truck, included blood vials and human organs. The truck did not have the required warnings posted on its exterior to indicate that it contained infectious waste; it had been parked in front of National for some two weeks, though the regulations permitted storage for no more than five days; and because of its failure to properly contain the waste, it was leaking blood onto the pavement. 22 Environmental Contractors's last SDEC permit expired on March 31, 1989, but the company continued to collect and dispose of infectious waste without a permit. From February until June 1989, Environmental Contractors operated out of a transfer station belonging to All County Sanitation, a company owned by Vulpis in Long Island City, New York, where infectious waste was stored for as long as two months. This facility was not authorized by SDEC to serve as an infectious waste storage facility. 23 Each of Environmental Contractors's violations of the state regulatory scheme in September 1988 and during the early months of 1989 exposed to legal sanctions the persons who had generated the waste found in Environmental Contractors's possession. Several of these persons or entities were required to pay civil penalties.