IEPA Director Lisa Bonnett also announced that the agency will pursue
legal measures to prevent further distribution of funds to
Environmental Management Inc. until a resolution to these
proceedings is reached. The agency will launch its own review of
projects done by the company to ensure that taxpayer money was spent
effectively and that environmental concerns were appropriately
addressed.
IEPA administers the program to clean up leaking underground
storage tank sites, including the review and approval of payments
for legitimate costs of site cleanup. The agency has been partnering
with law enforcement in this investigation since 2010, when an
inspector performing routine follow-up on a site in McLean County
discovered that remediation measures, which were billed and paid for
from the cleanup fund, were never done.
Illinois EPA referred the matter to the Illinois State Police,
which, upon discovering the much larger scope of the scheme,
contacted the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. EPA to
conduct a joint state and federal investigation, eventually seeking
the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for Central District of
Illinois and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI assumed
the lead in the investigation and has worked closely with the
prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick D. Hansen.
Eric M. Andrews, Joel C. Andrews, Michael R. Keebler, Duane T.
Keebler and Joseph R. Keebler were indicted Oct. 9 on various
criminal charges of participating in an ongoing pattern of mail
fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy for a period of years in connection
with the submission to Illinois EPA of inflated, false or fictitious
claims for the payment of costs of investigation and remediation of
leaking underground tank sites.
Among other things, the indictments allege that the defendants
padded subcontractor invoices by increasing the amount of work done
and price charged, created invoices for work that was not done at
all, and committed bid rigging by setting the amounts of allegedly
competitive bids obtained from affiliated, and even fictitious,
companies.
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Conspiracy is a felony that carries a potential sentence of a fine
and imprisonment of up to five years, while felony mail fraud
carries a potential of a fine and imprisonment of up to 20 years. In
addition to the potential fines and imprisonment faced by the
defendants, the indictment against Keebler and the Andrews brothers
seeks forfeiture of 17 parcels of real estate and 26 bank, security
and trust accounts attributable to allegedly ill-gotten gains, as
well as a personal money judgment against the defendants in the
amount of $13,614,060.29.
Members of the public are reminded that an indictment is merely
an accusation; each defendant is presumed innocent unless proven
guilty.
For more information about the criminal case, contact the U.S.
Attorney's Office in Springfield at 217-492-4450. For more
information about the program to clean up leaking underground
storage tank sites, visit
http://www.epa.state.il.us/
land/lust/introduction.html.
[Text from
Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency
file received from the
Illinois Office of
Communication and Information]
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