Owner of H&M Demolition sentenced to 13 months in prison for improperly handling asbestos.
“This is not a case about an evil man who was concerned only for himself,” his attorney, Thomas McCarthy, said. “Rather, it is a case about a good, albeit stubborn, man, who in the interest of trying to make his business a success and provide for his family, grew his business too fast, took on too much debt, got in over his head, and ultimately cut corners to try to stay afloat.”
The government said Tucker, who was sentenced today to 13 months in federal prison, took dangerous short cuts and exposed many, including his own workers, to asbestos in 2005. While working at a defunct lumber company’s kiln-drying building in Wyoming, he instructed workers to knock asbestos panels down with an excavator, despite federal regulations the panels be removed by hand, carefully lowered to the ground and kept wet until properly disposed of, authorities said.
Tons of contaminated debris were taken to a cement-recycling facility to avoid high costs of proper asbestos disposal, workers told investigators.
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