Sentencing hearing delayed 15th time for Maryland man convicted of environmental crime
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Sentencing has been delayed for the 15th time for a 66-year-old Maryland man indicted more than four years ago on an environmental charge.
Ed Knieriem Jr. of Cockeysville, Md., stockpiled between 8,000 and 10,000 tons of “steel swarf” at a former factory on Refractories Drive in Champion Township.
He has been able to delay sentencing since May 2012, arguing primarily that he is too ill to travel to Warren for court.
But in recent months, he also has said he is removing the potentially flammable material, said Chuck Morrow, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor.
Removing the material is what the prosecutor’s office and local environmental officials have wanted, Morrow said. Knieriem pleaded guilty to six counts of open dumping and burning in March 2012 related to the material, which is on Knieriem’s Diversified Resources property at the end of Folsom Drive.
The most-recent sentencing hearing was set for Tuesday, but it is now pushed back to Dec. 17.
Morrow said Knieriem has provided documentation indicating that he has removed some of the material recently, but Morrow said he will be “trying to confirm” those claims before the December hearing.
Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court could sentence Knieriem to up to four years in prison and a $25,000 fine on each count, Morrow has said.
Representatives from the Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste District and Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office have said the material has been at the site more than a decade, but it became a greater environmental concern after Knieriem allowed workers to scrap parts of the former factory that housed the material, exposing it to the weather.
Swarf can combust or leach into groundwater when exposed to moisture, said Major Harold Firster of the sheriff’s office.
Swarf is the grinding leftover of certain manufacturing operations. Some of the steel swarf Diversified Resources has accepted since 1993 came from companies such as Crossman (a BB pellet manufacturer) and Caterpillar (heavy equipment).