Erie Coke fined $700,000 in sentence that ends environmental case, divides courtroom

The environmental fraud prosecution of the Erie Coke Corp. ended with the neighbors upset and even the judge and the prosecutor saying they wish they could have done more.

U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter adhered to Erie Coke’s plea agreement and fined the Buffalo-area corporation $700,000 on Oct. 7 for violating the Clean Air Act by unlawfully emitting pollutants at its former plant at the foot of East Avenue along the Lake Erie shoreline.

A group of about 10 environmental activists and neighbors of the plant attended the sentencing at the federal courthouse in Erie, and three of them spoke against the deal.

They said that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh should have tried to prosecute Erie Coke’s executives and force the business to pay a fine of much more than $700,000. Erie Coke should have to compensate those who the speakers said suffered from cancer and other heath problems due to its pollution, the speakers said.

“Who speaks for the victims who cannot speak for themselves?” said the Rev. Jerry Priscaro, a Catholic priest in residence at St. Ann Church.

Priscaro has pushed to hold Erie Coke accountable for the pollution. He called the situation at the now-shuttered plant “Erie’s Love Canal,” referring to the neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, that was the site of an environmental disaster due to the dumping of chemicals in the 1970s.

“The magnitude of this is so incomprehensible,” Priscaro said of the Erie Coke case.

Judge says plea deal accounted for Erie Coke’s assets

Baxter responded by explaining that she accepted the plea agreement, which called for the $700,000 fine, at the recommendation of the prosecution and defense. She said the agreement considered that Erie Coke’s plant is out of business and that financial records show the most the corporation has for a fine is $700,000.

If she rejected the plea, Baxter said, Erie Coke could have withdrawn from the plea deal and gone to trial — a proceeding that Baxter said would have cost the corporation tens of thousands of dollars, and “then we would be spending money that could be going toward a fine.”

Erie Coke’s lack of financial resources, Baxter said, “puts everybody in a box.”

“I don’t know that everyone is pleased with the outcome,” she said, “but we look at an outcome that can be fair as can be.”

Baxter expressed her sympathy to the speakers, but she said the fine penalizes Erie Coke for a “corporate history of noncompliance.”

Erie Coke indicted nearly three years ago

Erie Coke was indicted on eight felony counts of environmental fraud in November 2022. The corporation faced a fine of up to $500,000 on each count.

Erie Coke in June pleaded guilty to the lead count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act from October 2015 to December 2019, when the plant closed due to longstanding environmental issues.

It also pleaded guilty to one count of violating what is known as a Title V permit requirements, referring to the type of environmental permit the plant needed to operate. That count covered the period from November 2017 to December 2019.

The lead prosecutor, Pittsburgh-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole A. Vasquez Schmitt, told Baxter and the attendees that the Clean Air Act does not mandate restitution, which left the prosecution to pursue a fine. She echoed Baxter’s remarks about Erie Coke’s limited financial resources.

“They essentially have $700,000,” Vasquez Schmitt said. “That is the universe of what we are working with here.”

Erie Coke’s lawyer apologizes for any harm

The Erie Coke plant was accused of deliberately bypassing air-pollution monitors at the 137-employee plant as it made coke — a derivative of coal produced by heating coal in sealed ovens at temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the indictment.

The pollutants released into the air included the chemicals benzene, toluene and xylene, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Environmental Protection Agency classifies benzene as a known carcinogen.

At the sentencing, Erie Coke’s lawyer and sole representative, Rodney Personius, of Buffalo, said the corporation worked to abide by environmental regulations. But he said the manufacturing of coke produces dangerous chemicals no matter what the circumstances, and that “it is impossible not to have violations.”

Personius said he disagreed with the characterization that Erie Coke fostered a culture of noncompliance. He said the corporation was sorry for any adverse effects on the environment and the neighborhood.

“To the degree that anyone has been harmed,” Personius said in court, “the company does apologize.”

Sentence wraps up multi-layered environmental prosecution

Erie Coke no longer owns the 182-acre site of the plant, the focus of government-funded environmental cleanup. The Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority acquired the property in early 2024, and the Port Authority and the Erie County Development Authority plan to redevelop the site.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged two other defendants along with Erie Coke. They were Anthony Nearhoof, the plant’s superintendent, and David Stablein, a plant supervisor under Nearhoof. The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged both with conspiracy but moved to end both those cases without prosecution.

The office in July placed Nearhoof in a program in which he would avoid prosecution if he successfully completes a year of supervision. Nearhoof has pleaded not guilty. And in August, Baxter granted the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and dismissed the case against Stablein, who was a cooperating witness and pleaded guilty in 2023. He was never sentenced.

The resolution of those cases left the prosecution of Erie Coke as the last remaining part of the legal saga. And though the $700,000 fine divided many in the courtroom, Baxter concluded the sentencing with a remark that likely would find agreement with most everyone involved in the case.

“The effects of the company’s conduct,” Baxter said, “will be felt for many years.”