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SOUTH CAROLINA TANK TESTER SENTENCED TO PRISON
Release Date: 01/18/2002
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2002
Carolina Upgrading of South Carolina Inc., an environmental contracting company, and its former president and owner, James Edward Adams of Inman, S.C., were sentenced for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and related crimes. Adams was ordered to serve 27 months in prison and three years probation. Carolina Upgrading was placed on probation for three years. Adams directed employees of Carolina Upgrading to provide customers in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee with falsified underground storage tank tests results and with invoices for those false results. Many of the over 1500 falsified tests for which customers were billed were not performed at all. The loss from fraud suffered by Adams’ customers amounted to approximately $750,000. Two former employees of Carolina Upgrading, Mark Scruggs and Chris Fletcher, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and were each sentenced to five months of home confinement. Falsifying underground tank test reports can cause leaking storage tanks to go undetected and create a risk of ground water contamination which can make drinking water unsafe for human consumption. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Office of Criminal Investigations, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbia and the U.S. Department of Justice.
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