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PA FORMER OKLAHOMA SHERIFF PLEADS GUILTY TO HAZARDOUS WASTE CRIME
Release Date: 12/19/97
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1997
FORMER OKLAHOMA SHERIFF PLEADS GUILTY TO
HAZARDOUS WASTE CRIME
On Dec. 17, Decco Dewayne Baxter, former Sheriff of Marshall County, Okla., plead guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee to conspiring to violate the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, intimidation of a witness to an environmental crime, as well as to other federal crimes related to illegal drug manufacturing and a firearms violation. Baxter admitted to having been involved in a conspiracy that led to the disposal of 34 55-gallon drums of hazardous automotive repair wastes and paint wastes that were stored at H & J Auto and Salvage in Madil, Okla. Twenty-three of the drums were dumped in a field in Mill Creek, Okla., and seven others were illegally disposed of in a field in Sulphur, Okla. When sentenced on all counts, Baxter faces of term of imprisonment of from ten years to life. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; the U.S. Marshals Service, the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality under direction of the Oklahoma Environmental Crimes Task Force.
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