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 The pleas came seven months after investigators raided Dell's
Maraschino Cherries, based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and the company's
owner committed suicide in a bathroom at the facility.
The company will pay $1.2 million, including $130,000 in cash seized
from the premises, and pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and
failing to monitor wastewater dumped into the nearby New York
Harbor, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said.
The company will be allowed to continue operating, attorney Michael
Farkas said.
"This favorable settlement with the Brooklyn DA, the NY City DEP
(Department of Environmental Protection) and the NY State DEC
(Department of Environmental Conservation) allows Dell's not only to
continue to operate, but to grow and expand its business in the
future," Farkas said in an email.
 In February, state and city environmental investigators descended on
the cherry company, with describes itself as one of the largest
manufacturers of cocktail cherries in the country, to look into
complaints that the family-owned business was dumping syrup and
other cherry waste into sewers without properly monitoring acidity
levels.
During the raid, investigators noticed the smell of marijuana, and
then the company's owner, Arthur Mondella, 57, whose father and
grandfather had opened the business in 1948, excused himself and
locked himself in a private bathroom. A gunshot rang out, the
Brooklyn district attorney's office said.
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He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
With the admission of wrongdoing and the settlement in court, "the
Mondella family takes another step forward after Arthur's tragic
loss," Farkas said.
On its website, the company says it has "earned its reputation for
delivering the crunchiest, tastiest and sweetest maraschino cherries
sourced from the finest farms around the world."
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Michael Perry)
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