Certified Environmental Services Inc. (CES) conspired with asbestos removal companies for nearly a decade. CES falsified lab results that proved the supposed proper removal of asbestos. Removal companies (such as Aapex Environmental and Paragon Environmental) were hired to remove asbestos from homes, schools, and other buildings. They represented that their work was successful in freeing structures from the deadly substance and relied on CES’s falsified air quality reports to prove the proper and successful removal of asbestos when this could not be further from the truth. This conspiracy caused people to put their lives in danger as they continued to live, study, and work in buildings that were certified to be asbestos free – when in reality the cancer causing substance remained.

“Falsifying asbestos reports and air quality data is a serious crime and undermines our nation’s efforts to protect human health and the environment,” said Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Exposure to asbestos can be fatal, and the conviction by a jury shows that the American people will not tolerate illegal activity that puts the public at risk of cancer or other serious respiratory diseases.”

“Because of the dishonest and illegal practices of this company, many people were left unaware for years of their possible exposure to asbestos,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. “Companies and employees will be fully investigated and prosecuted when they put the public’s health at risk by violating environmental laws.”

CES and the conspirators within the company will now face justice. CES will possibly be fined a maximum of $7.5 million, plus restitution to all victims. The individual conspirators face maximum fines of $3 million, $1.25 million, and $1 million with respective maximum jail sentences of 110 years, 40 years, and 50 years. Sentencing will occur on February 25, 2011 in Utica, New York.

This conviction is just the latest related to fraudulent asbestos removal that have been brought to trial by the EPA and the Justice Department. This fact is disturbing considering the decades old knowledge that asbestos causes and continues to cause invariably fatal forms of lung cancer such as asbestosis and mesothelioma. As determined by the EPA, there is no known safe level of asbestos exposure.