Bennett Environmental Inc. Pleads Guilty to Defrauding the U.S. Environmental Protection...

Bennett Environmental Inc. Pleads Guilty to Defrauding the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency

Company Agrees to Pay $1 Million Criminal Fine

WASHINGTON, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Bennett Environmental Inc.
(BEI), a Canada-based company that treats and disposes of contaminated soils,
pleaded guilty today and has agreed to pay a $1 million criminal fine for
participating in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) at a New Jersey Superfund site, the Department of Justice
announced. The plea agreement, filed today in U.S. District Court in New
Jersey, involves the EPA-designated Superfund site, Federal Creosote, which is
located in Manville, N.J.

Along with the $1 million criminal fine, the Department will recommend to the
court that Oakville, Ontario-based BEI and its co-conspirators pay a total of
$1.66 million in restitution. The cleanup at the Federal Creosote site is
partly funded by the EPA. Under an interagency agreement between the EPA and
the Army Corps of Engineers, prime contractors oversaw the removal, treatment
and disposal of contaminated soil at the Federal Creosote site.

BEI pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to defraud the EPA at the
Federal Creosote site by inflating the prices it charged to a prime contractor
of the EPA and paying kickbacks to employees of that prime contractor from
approximately May 2002 until approximately the spring of 2004. According to
the charge, BEI, through its agents and co-conspirators, frustrated the
competitive bid process and defrauded the EPA at the Federal Creosote site.
BEI was given confidential bid information and then inflated invoices to cover
approximately $1.3 million in kickbacks to employees of the prime contractor
in exchange for their assistance in steering sub-contracts to BEI. The
kickbacks were in the form of money wire transfers to a co-conspirator's shell
company, cruises for senior officials of the prime contractor, various
entertainment tickets, and home entertainment electronics. As part of the
fraudulent scheme, BEI and its co-conspirators also included amounts it kept
for itself in the inflated invoices.

"The Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable companies and
individuals who engage in schemes to subvert the competitive process,
particularly where American taxpayer dollars are involved," said Thomas O.
Barnett, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust
Division.

As part of the same investigation, on July 23, 2008, JMJ Environmental Inc., a
Laurel Springs, N.J., wastewater treatment supply company, its owner John
Drimak Jr., and Norman Stoerr, a former contracts administrator, pleaded
guilty to bid rigging, fraud and tax charges in connection with sub-contracts
for wastewater treatment supplies and services at two Superfund sites in New
Jersey-Federal Creosote and Diamond Alkali in Newark, N.J. Sentencing is
scheduled for Nov. 3, 2008.

BEI is charged with conspiring to commit fraud which carries a maximum penalty
of a $500,000 fine. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain
derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime,
if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine. An
order of restitution is also mandatory.

Today's charges reflect the Department's commitment to protecting U.S.
taxpayers from procurement fraud through its creation of the National
Procurement Fraud Task Force. The National Procurement Fraud Initiative,
announced in October 2006, is designed to promote the early detection,
prosecution, and prevention of procurement fraud associated with the increase
in contracting activity for national security and other government programs.

The ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division's New
York Field Office, the EPA Office of Inspector General and the Internal
Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. Anyone with information concerning
bid rigging, kickbacks, tax offenses, or fraud relating to sub-contracts
awarded at the Federal Creosote site should contact the Antitrust Division's
New York Field Office of the at 212-264-9308.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, +1-202-514-2007, or TDD,
+1-202-514-1888