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LOWELL MAN SENTENCED TO PRISON TERM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL FRAUD

Release Date: 12/24/1996
Contact Information: Alice Kaufman, EPA Press Office, (617) 918-1064

Boston - A Lowell man was sentenced in federal court to a one year prison term for wire fraud violations growing out of environmental testing and disposal of wastes.

Alan P. Stevens, 47, formerly of 18 Hersam Street, Stoneham, Massachusetts and Parsonage Road, Cornish, New Hampshire, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay $7,476 in restitution on a one-count criminal Information charging him with having violated the wire fraud statute. United States District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns imposed the sentence on December 23, 1996. Stevens previously held himself out as being affiliated with an environmental testing laboratory, Alliance Testing and Consulting, with addresses at 58 Union Avenue, Sudbury, Massachusetts and 13 Hersam Street, Stoneham, Massachusetts, and another laboratory.

At a previous hearing, the Court was advised that, between May 1993 and May 1996, Stevens executed a scheme in which he purported to contract on behalf of laboratories to provide collection, testing and waste disposal services, knowing that such services would not be provided as represented and that resulting reports would be false and fraudulent. The Court was advised that, at trial, the evidence would have shown that, purporting to act on behalf of a laboratory, Stevens collected from a waste generator samples of waste oil (which included PCBs) for analysis, but did not deliver the samples to any laboratory. Instead, Stevens prepared what appeared to be a laboratory report reflecting the supposed testing of such samples, and affixed a fraudulent signature to the phony report, which was delivered to his clients. The document was fraudulent in that it falsely represented that laboratory tests had been duly performed by qualified chemists and that such document was a truthful and accurate report respecting such tests. Stevens is not a chemist and was not authorized by any laboratory to personally conduct tests of samples.

In addition, the court was advise that Stevens, purporting to act on behalf of alliance Testing and Consulting, entered into an agreement to dispose of six 55-gallon drums containing waste oil (including PCBs). Stevens provided to the waste generator a letter in which he claimed falsely that such waste was included in the effluent stream of Alliance. In fact, Stevens rented a truck and used it to transport the drums and their contents to unoccupied property in Peabody, Massachusetts, where the drums were abandoned.

At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, Stevens was taken into custody by Deputy United States Marshals. Stevens began serving his sentence immediately.

The investigation, which is continuing, is being conducted by Special Agents of the Environmental Protection Agency and by Massachusetts State Police Officers and personnel from the Massachusetts Environmental Strike Force, and interagency enforcement body designed to identify and pursue high-priority cases.