Guilty Plea Entered in Medical Waste Case

By ADRIAN ANGELETTE

An Atlanta man who stored more than 5 tons of medical waste in a warehouse on Renoir Avenue pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating Louisiana environmental laws.

Prosecutor Mark Pethke said a plea deal agreed to by Christopher Troy Lee, 30, owner of BioTech Environmental Inc., requires that Lee be sentenced to 23 months in prison for storing the potentially infectious medical waste in the warehouse without a permit. That sentencing is scheduled to take place today before state District Judge Richard Anderson.

Lee faced up to 10 years in prison on the charge of willful and intentional disposal of a substance in contravention of the Louisiana Environmental Quality Act.

Lee was booked on the charge in June 2003, but was released after posting a $35,000 bond. Anderson revoked his bond in December 2003 after being told Lee was suspected of illegally storing medical waste in Georgia, Pethke said.

Lee has been in Parish Prison since the bond revocation, the prosecutor said.

“It is relatively unusual for someone to do time in prison for environmental crimes,” Pethke said. “But this should serve as an example to anyone else, particularly those involved with the cleanup around Louisiana, that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the district attorney’s office take environmental laws seriously.”

Pethke said Lee has already been in prison for more than 22 months and will be released from Parish Prison soon.

“He could still face the charges in Georgia for similar activity,” the prosecutor said.

Lee’s court-appointed attorney, Tonya Lurry, could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Most of the used bandages, syringes, needles, amputated limbs, and body fluids were being transported from Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center near Houma, Pethke said. Other waste came from doctors’ offices, clinics and other facilities.

The DEQ permit Lee held required him to take the medical waste from the medical facility to an incinerator, the prosecutor said. Lee did not hold a permit to store medical waste.

State environmental officials were particularly concerned about the Lee case because the warehouse where he stored the medical waste was adjacent to a school and near residences.

Lee’s practices came under suspicion when a warehouse in Crowley, leased to Lee’s company, caught fire on Nov. 9, 2001, and firefighters discovered 20 tons on medical waste. DEQ inspectors found the 11,000 pounds of waste in Baton Rouge stored in more than 700 boxes at the company’s Louisiana headquarters at 6748 Renoir Ave. shortly thereafter.

The waste was packed into a warehouse and two trailers parked outside, and the trailers were leaking, inspectors said at the time.

At the same time investigators were finding the medical waste, medical facilities began questioning why they were not getting invoices to prove their waste had been destroyed.

State District Judge Timothy Kelley ordered Lee to clean up the Renoir site, but Lee fled the state and it cost DEQ $39,003 to clean it up, Pethke said.

Georgia authorities have said that Lee was operating under the same company name in Georgia. But instead of storing the medical waste in warehouses, Lee would collect the medical waste in rental trucks and abandon those trucks in public places instead of hauling the waste to incinerators, authorities have said.