Md. Contractor, Employee Plead Guilty To Dumping

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler says a Hyattsville contractor and an employee have pleaded guilty to illegal dumping charges.

The attorney general's office announced Thursday that Gilbert Francis, 55, of Temple Hills pleaded guilty in Calvert County Circuit Court. Francis was given a 30-day suspended sentence and fined $500. Francis was also ordered to perform 20 hours of community service.

Francis' employer, American Contractors Inc., was ordered to pay $14,290 for the cost of cleaning up the dumped waste.

The contractor was also fined $30,000 with all but $10,000 suspended.

Gansler's office says the property owner's son responded to an ad for free fill dirt. Truckloads of solid waste including mattresses and toilet fixtures were then dumped along with soil on a steep slope leading to a Patuxent River tributary.

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