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By Eric Freedman
A federal judge has slapped a Western Pennsylvania copper-processing company with a $550,000 fine for its years-long criminal violations of the Clean Water Act, including illegal discharging of oil into the Ohio River.
U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV also put Hussey Copper on probation for three years.
The company pleaded guilty to charges stemming from violations at its Leetsdale facility that manufactures copper products for electrical distribution and residential and industrial construction markets, according to a press statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh.
The Hussey Copper website proclaims “The Element of Trust” as a company philosophy and describes the company as “stable, responsive and reliable since 1848.”
The tossing of an indictment is unusual in federal court.
So is the criticism that the U.S. district judge, Stephanie L. Haines, of Johnstown, issued in ordering the release of the defendant, Robert E. Noble, 42, who represented himself and had been under indictment for three years and 10 months.
Haines faulted the U.S. Attorney s Office in Erie for taking too long to bring the case to trial in violation of federal speedy trial rules.
But Haines, in a rare display of finding fault with a peer on the bench, also blamed the judge originally assigned the case, David S. Cercone, of Pittsburgh, for extending the case for too long by waiting lengthy periods of time to rule on motions and other matters.