Tom Sansonetti News

Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and Marcos Daniel Jiménez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced that three senior cruise ship engineers were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, for their role in concealing the overboard dumping of waste oil from the SS Norway cruise ship in false log books designed to deceive the United States Coast Guard. The defendants, Chief Engineers Knut Sorboe and Peter Solemdal, Senior First Engineer Aage Lokkebraten are Norwegian nationals who were employed by Norwegian Cruise Line Limited (NCL) at the time of the offenses.

Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division and Marcos Daniel Jiménez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced that three senior cruise ship engineers were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami, Fla., for their role in concealing the overboard dumping of waste oil from the SS Norway cruise ship in false log books designed to deceive the U.S. Coast Guard. The defendants, Chief Engineers Knut Sorboe and Peter Solemdal, Senior First Engineer Aage Lokkebraten are Norwegian nationals who were employed by Norwegian Cruise Line Limited (NCL) at the time of the offenses.

Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Christopher J. Christie, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, announced that a Connecticut-based shipping company that transports petroleum products in the United States and abroad was sentenced to pay $4.2 million for illegally concealing the dumping of thousands of gallons of waste oil and sludge at sea. U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden ordered OMI Corporation, to pay a $4.2 million fine and serve three years of probation. Judge Hayden also awarded $2.1 million of the fine to a former OMI crew member who reported the crimes to the government.

Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Charles W. Larson, Sr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, announced that an Iowa-based shipping company that transported grain cargoes and petroleum products in the United States and abroad was sentenced to pay $2 million for illegally dumping thousands of gallons of waste oil, hundreds of tons of diesel-contaminated grain, and plastic wastes at sea. Sabine Transportation Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, admitted it deliberately dumped waste oil, sludge, and oily mixtures from the S/S Trinity, the S/S Juneau, the S/S Sea Princess, and the S/S Colorado without the use of required pollution prevention equipment.

The Department of Justice, on behalf of the Departments of Interior and Commerce, and the State of New Jersey, announced today that France Shipmanagement S.A., the operator of the tank vessel Anitra-from which there was an estimated 40,000 gallon oil spill in 1996 into the Delaware Bay off the coast of New Jersey-has agreed to pay the United States and State of New Jersey a combined $1.5 million to resolve allegations that the spill resulted in injury to natural resources. “The funds provided as a result of today's settlement help us realize the goal of restoring the breeding grounds of migratory shorebirds, like the piping plover,” said Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. The U.S.

A federal grand jury in Anchorage indicted a corporate director, two corporate managers, a ship's captain and a first engineer for their roles in an ocean pollution conspiracy involving the direct discharges of oil from a fleet of large, refrigerated cargo ships that regularly travel through Alaska waters, the Justice Department announced. The indictment charges the individuals of conspiracy to lie to the U.S. Coast Guard in order to conceal the dumping of waste oil from the ships and to obstruct the investigation of the agency and the grand jury. The charges against In Seok Yang, a member of the Board of Directors of Boyang Maritime Kyeong Shin Deep Sea Fisheries Company of Pusan…

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company of Oak Brook, Ilinois will pay nearly $1 million for damages to seagrass and other resources in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the Justice Department and the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today. The $969,000 settlement reached on behalf of NOAA and the State of Florida is the largest ever obtained for damages to seagrass in the sanctuary. The funds, combined with an earlier $618,485 settlement obtained from co-defendant Coastal Marine Towing, will help restore the injured areas and reimburse NOAA for response costs. "We are thrilled with the settlement," said Sharon Shutler, attorney for the NOAA General Counsel for Natural Resources.

A Federal Jury found Ronald Cook, a Canadian citizen, guilty of illegally dumping trash bags full of asbestos into the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. He had been hired to lead a crew performing demolition on an old ferry boat, the Muskegan Clipper, as it sailed from San Diego, California, through the Panama Canal to Mobile, Alabama. The ship was eventually to be transformed into a riverboat gambling casino. In order to save time and costs, the crew bagged up the demolition debris, including plastic garbage bags full of asbestos, and threw it overboard into the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Carribean Sea at the direction of Cook. Dissenting crew members photographed the others as they threw the asbestos and trash into the sea.