from the all-megacorportion-execs-still-roaming-free dept.
The Center for American Progress reports:
The owner of a small Ohio oil and gas drilling company who ordered his employees to dump tens of thousands of gallons of fracking waste into a tributary of the Mahoning River was sentenced to 28 months of prison on Tuesday, according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer report.
U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent also ordered 64-year-old Benedict Lupo, owner of Hardrock Excavating LLC, to pay $25,000 for unlawful discharge of pollutants under the U.S. Clean Water Act. Lupo pleaded guilty to the charges in March, admitting to having his employees dump fracking wastewater into the Mahoning River tributary 33 times.
[...]
Lupo's attorneys attempted to get Lupo out of his prison sentence because of his health, and instead put him on home detention, saying jail would be equivalent to "the death penalty." But Nugent would not reconsider, citing the fact that Lupo had instructed his employees to lie about dumping the waste.
"Ben Lupo put his own interests ahead of everyone else's, and he deserved to face a severe penalty for his actions," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. "The recent water crisis in Toledo is a grave reminder of how important it is to protect our waterways."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:02PM
Fuck these communists. How dare they send a job creator to jail for some envirowacko bullshit. Is this the fucking USSR or America?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:55PM
i lol'd
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @07:00PM
Yuck it up, chucklefuck. And keep doing so when all the job creators leave Great Leader Obama's socialist paradise for greener pastures and you're unemployed.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Friday August 08 2014, @09:47PM
Same tired old "NOBAMA" rhetoric. Pretty soon jobs will be insourced to the U.S. ... and given to robots. When 15-25% unemployment becomes the norm, then you'll know real socialism.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @10:26PM
The real unemmployment rate has been over 15% for several years, and is at least 20% right now [zerohedge.com]. How much longer until socialism finally kicks in? Until so many people are bankrupt and starving on the streets that nobody has the balls to say, "Its their own damn fault!" anymore? The unemployment rate will probably be at least 60-70% before that happens.
We're already in the middle of the Second Great Depression. How much worse does it need to get before we do something besides shovel money to millionaires who don't pay taxes?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09 2014, @01:42AM
The real [unemployment] rate[...]is at least 20% right now
Yup. A guy who has pointed out that the govt's numbers are crap [googleusercontent.com] (orig[1]) [shadowstats.com] puts the number at 23 percent. [shadowstats.com]
(Note that the gov't, not getting the number right, doesn't get the trend correct either.)
Since Clinton's reign, people who realize that there simply are no jobs available and that they're just wasting their money and energy looking are not counted as unemployed.
Additionally, when 1 person has 2 part-time jobs, that counts as 2 employed people.
The govt's numbers are complete garbage.
How much longer until socialism finally kicks in?
Unemployment was 33 percent in 1933 when the American people finally kicked out Hoover and FDR got started with the New Deal.
We're already in the middle of the Second Great Depression
...only if you don't count the one that started in 1837 or the one that started in 1873.
Capitalism fails again and again and again and again; it's the nature if the beast.
[1] "their model stopped working"
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:22AM
He's too small to count.
Unless he can contribute cash of an amount with 6 or 7 digits to either R or D each year, he's a small business owner who has no value to the US economy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday August 08 2014, @06:05PM
"The owner of a small Ohio oil"
Ie, be big not small. And pay your government bribes properly. All your sins will be deleted. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:15PM
Yep he forgot to send a bribe to the Glorious Leader like the content industries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:46PM
Socialism ain't cheap, brah.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 09 2014, @12:46AM
Capitalism - The bribe price is determined by how many other decomposing fishes that compete with you. After paying you can take what you want from people lower on the power ladder.
Libertarianism - Everything is for sale, even government. When government has been bought system slips to another mode.
Socialism - Everybody is treated the same weather if fits their life or not. But whenever the leaders really need to get something done there's a "deal" to be made.
Communism - Everybody officially believe in the system. Those in the top don't need to take bribes. They take what they want anyway or simple bribed with irresistible offers to get there.
Theoism - Pray that you believe or at least that others believe that you believe. Official beliefs works as currency but then leaders also need stuff and you have a deal.
Nepotism - You must belong to the right tribe. But you can always grease the chain of relatives to eventually get what you want anyway.
Reality - Don't give a fuck what people do and will happily steam roll them whenever they think they outsmarted the super system but acted on the wrong imagination even by the slightest margin. If it kills of all life so be it.
Proberbly highly inaccurate ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Friday August 08 2014, @06:13PM
I can't speak to how much harm was done, not knowing the substances involved or the concentrations, etc, but that hardly matters. It clearly was against the law and he had his employees lie about it.
I may think that some of the laws on IP and copyright are silly and overprotective of some interests, but that won't stop me from getting fined or jailed for breaking them.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Mr. Lupo.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Friday August 08 2014, @09:37PM
I share some of your sentiment, but the law is not an inherent moral high ground. Remember, I used to be able to own people of specific skin colors as property. It *was* the law too.
If this "gentleman" had been growing and selling weed I would be performing jury nullification as we speak regardless of how one might feel the law is inherently superior.
You can only look to the law like that when we all have equal access to the creation of laws and policies concerning their enforcement . That's not even remotely true at this point, and if there was some truth to it, there would be no war on drugs and thousands upon thousands of people on Wall Street would be in prison in the last 7 years. Basically, laws would be based on common sense and the collective welfare of mankind. Laws are based on pools of power and influence instead and what leads towards economic stability for the privileged classes. The fact those laws are superficially beneficial with "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not steal" is purely coincidental and used as a selling point to the hoi polloi.
Given the lack of representation at the table, I could give two happy shits about something being the "law". I want this guy to die in prison in a small cell only because of his reckless and callous disregard for his fellow human beings in the pursuit of his own greed.
He was small though. Most men like him purchase the law that you hold so high, so why should I be so concerned or patriotic about the law? What does it do for me besides the very basics of social order again?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Saturday August 09 2014, @01:55PM
Maybe we'll finally get a chance to know what's in the brew they're putting in these wells,
surely the EPA should publish a list of the contaminants....
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Friday August 08 2014, @06:26PM
His actions put the environment and hundreds, if not thousands of people in peril. He did it for personal gain with reckless disregard to the public. 28 months is not even close to enough time, but I'd be mollified if he had to drink and bathe in water laced with the crap he dumped while he sat in his cell and rotted away.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:40PM
Anything short of the gallows is too kind for this asshole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @07:25PM
Might depend on whether or not any of his fellow inmates have family downriver from dump site. Or otherwise having issues related to fracking.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @07:38PM
Which can mean many things, including that it can be a more penetrating truth that it is better to be hung then to find out your fellow inmates are HUNG!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Friday August 08 2014, @06:47PM
He should be liable for whatever the costs are to put the river back to the condition it was before he fouled it, even if the costs are greater than the value of his business and all his personal assets.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1) by That_Dude on Saturday August 09 2014, @12:52PM
The real question is - Will an adequate clean-up ever be done? Is it even possible?
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Friday August 08 2014, @06:50PM
> His actions put the environment and hundreds, if not thousands of people in peril. He did
> it for personal gain with reckless disregard to the public. 28 months
Boy is he glad he didn't share a copyrighted file instead.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09 2014, @02:02AM
Holy fuck is it sad that we live where copyright infringement beats environmental crimes.
Glad you said it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 08 2014, @07:55PM
To be fair, you would have to be an idiot to swim in the Mahoning, Shenango, Beaver, Monongahela, or any of the other tributaries of the Ohio River in the OH/PA/WV tri-state area. The Allegheny is the only big river around here I would think about going in, and even then, at least 40 miles upstream of Pittsburgh.
For every asshole like this that gets caught, there are 100 businesses and individuals polluting these rivers on a daily basis.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jelizondo on Friday August 08 2014, @06:30PM
The guy's lastname (Lupo) is wolf in Italian. So we can apply the old adage: Homo homini lupus (man is a wolf to man).
I find it an appropriate lastname for someone who doesn't care about his community. And there should be no mercy on his punishment; he didn't care about his fellows, why should they care about him? .
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Friday August 08 2014, @10:51PM
The wolf is actually a very social and cooperative creature. The "lone wolf" very often becomes a dead wolf, being unable to survive without a pack. But those cooperative behaviors of the wolf tend not to extend to the tasty creatures that humans herd, hence, the wolf's reputation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:46PM
Hogwash. He'll be fine in jail, where he needs to be for this callous crime against the environment. They'll give him the health care he needs. It may not be quite as good as he's used to but they'll make sure he gets what he needs to manage chronic conditions. The stress and anxiety of being in jail and what it does to one's health is another story but that's the price one pays for breaking the law.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @06:49PM
He's going to wealthy guy resort prison. He deserves to go to pound-me-in-ass prison to become Bubba's bitch.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @07:07PM
Nevermind anything that affects humans, they are second to the environment anyway.
/sarc
Priorities.
The "environment" will exist after you think humans won't.
If you think dirt(or water) is more important than human life then you should join the first now.
The only reason the environment matters is for the humans who come later.
This guy was ruining it for others, lock him up for crimes against humanity present and future.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @07:23PM
Are you retarded or just weak sauce trolling? It doesn't matter of the Earth will still be here if we pollute the world so much that it is uninhabitable for us.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mendax on Friday August 08 2014, @08:59PM
Ladies and Gentlemen, I nominate this frackwit for a 2014 IgNobel Award under the category of Enlightenment.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @09:04PM
Translation: I don't have an actual argument. Care to address my point? What does it matter if the Earth lives on if we make it uninhabitable for ourselves? The lake that supplies water to my city will continue to exist if I were to dump nuclear waste in it, but that hardly matters for the people who depend on it for their source of water, correct?
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Friday August 08 2014, @09:26PM
It's not you point, it's the point of the poster you replied to.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 08 2014, @10:56PM
The thing is, the powers-that-be will hang small guys like this out to dry in an attempt to mollify the general public, which has lost faith in the rule of law. They will hold them up as an example to say, "See? We do enforce the law. No, really, you can still trust us!" Meanwhile, Wall Street Bankers, giant oil companies, and all those of their ilk will continue to skate.
As such, they will fail. They will all still hang.
Washington DC delenda est.