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After a day of wrangling, an Italian shipping company pleaded guilty this afternoon to a pollution-related charge and agreed to pay a $1.3 million fine.
The plea agreement came at the end of a day that was supposed to be the start of a criminal trial in federal court.
Instead, that trial will begin Thursday against the Bottiglieri Challenger’s chief engineer, unless his attorneys also work out a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Giuseppe Bottiglieri pleaded guilty on behalf of his company to failure to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book. Under the deal with prosecutors, the company will pay $1 million fine to the U.S. treasury and make a $300,000 “community service” payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade asked for a presentence investigation by the U.S. Probation Office to give her more information about the company’s finances. Under the plea bargain, she can either accept the negotiated punishment or reject it and set the case for trial.
It is the second case in less than a year in which a foreign shipping firm has pleaded guilty in Mobile to offenses related to false logs concealing pollution in international waters. Target Ship Management in May pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.2 million in fines and payments.
Under federal law, prosecutors did not have to prove that the pollution occurred with its knowledge - only that it was done by someone acting within the scope of his employment and for the intended benefit of the company.
A transcript of a phone call between Bottiglieri and the ship’s captain on the morning after vessel arrived in Mobile depicts the company owner as angry that the policies of the business had not been followed.
“I will send the chief engineer to prison, because he is a rascal and a rogue,” the transcript quotes him as saying.
Vito La Forgia, a defendant in the case who was the chief engineer, later picked up the phone. According to the transcript, he acknowledged that he had rigged a bypass on a pollution control system, but said it was to save time, not to discharge oily waste.
George Chalos, an attorney for the company, said the firm had a good defense. But he said Bottiglieri wanted to reach an amicable resolution.
“He doesn’t want to fight the American government,” he said. “He’s had very good cooperation with the U.S.”
Bottiglieri acknowledged his company’s responsibility for his cargo ship pollution during a journey from Singapore to Brazil to the Port of Mobile. During that voyage, according to court records, senior engineers bypassed the vessel’s pollution control system six times to discharge oily waste directly into the sea.
When the ship arrived in Mobile on Jan. 24, according to the plea agreement, crewmembers presented the Coast Guard with a false Oil Record Book that failed to note the discharges.
La Forgia, who was the chief engineer, stands accused of ordering the discharges. Authorities contend that he rigged a so-called “magic pipe” to connect the purifier sludge tank with the bilge tank, bypassing a device called the oil water separator.
Chalos said Bottiglieri’s family has been in the shipping business since 1850; the defendant formed the company in 2005 after his father died, splitting his company in three.
Chalos said the company has an exemplary record of safety and compliance with international laws and regulations. He said that when an employee fails to live up to that standard, though, the company can find itself in court.
“It’s a very difficult day for the company,” he said. “You’re almost victimized twice.”
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