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http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2006/08/manager-convicted-of-homicide.htmlTuesday, August 15, 2006
PERMALINK Posted 9:08 PM by Jordan
Manager Convicted Of Homicide: Sentenced To Teaching Safety Classes
I've written a few times about the deaths of Far West Water and Sewage Company employees James Gamble, 26, and Gary Lanser, 62, who were suffocated by toxic sewage gases while working on an underground sewer tank on Oct. 24, 2001, in Mesa Del Sol, Arizona.
The company and the company's President Brent Weidman were prosecuted. According to the prosecutors on the case, the violations were so blatant, and it was so obvious that the workers had no idea of the danger inherent in confined spaces, that a criminal prosecution was completely appropriate. The air in the tank had not been tested during the day of the incident, the workers weren’t properly trained and the required safety and rescue procedures weren’t followed. Far West decided to fight the case, at one point arguing that the workers had mysteriously suffered simultaneous heart attacks.
The company was convicted of negligent homicide and aggravated assault last November and fined $1.77 million. Weidman was found guilty by a jury of two counts of negligent homicide and two counts of endangerment last June. Last week he was sentenced:
Superior Court Judge Andrew Gould sentenced Brent H. Weidman to four years of supervised probation for one of the negligent homicide convictions and another four years for one of the aggravated-assault convictions. The sentences will be served concurrently.
Weidman was also sentenced to three years of supervised probation for a second count of negligent homicide and three years of supervised probation for another count of aggravated assault. Those terms will also be served concurrently, and will start after his four-year probation ends.
"I'm pleased it's over and that it came out the way it did," a still-emotional Weidman said in the hallway outside the courtroom moments after the sentence was handed down. "But, it will always be a sore spot in everyone's life. I'm sorry for the families and their loses and sorrow."
The judge also sentenced Weidman, who used to head Far West Water and Sewer Company, to serve 840 hours of community service in which he will teach safety training classes for the Arizona Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Yuma and ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine at the rate of $250 a month which will take Weidman about 17 years to pay off.
Yeah, I'll bet Weidman's pleased. Kills two workers, convicted of negligent homicide and gets sentenced to teaching and the equivalent of a monthly car payment -- fates apparently worse than jail. That should teach American employers not to kill their workers.
I've spend a lot of time in this blog talking about the ineffectiveness of OSHA's penalty system and the need for more criminal prosecutions of employers who kill workers in clear violation of OSHA standards. But if judges are going to hand down non-sentences like this, what's the point?