Cops and Courts

The W.R. Grace & Co. trial sputtered toward its finale Tuesday as defense counsel called their final witnesses, clearing the way for jury instructions and closing arguments to begin first thing in the morning.

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy is adamant that jurors will receive the case and begin deliberations by Wednesday evening, and said he’d rein back long-winded lawyers and shorten the lunch break to accommodate that schedule.

“You will get the case tomorrow,” Molloy told the jury. “We will place the case in your hands and trust your judgment to follow the law and arrive at a just verdict.”

Grace and three former employees are charged with a federal conspiracy involving Clean Air Act violations and obstruction of justice. The charges relate to whether the company and its top employees knew they were endangering the community of Libby by mining asbestos-laced ore, and whether they did so in violation of federal law.

After 11 weeks of testimony, jurors were excused early on Tuesday afternoon, though lawyers on both sides worked into the evening, hashing out the final jury instructions in Molloy’s chambers.

Last week, Molloy proposed that the process of drafting final instructions be held in open court for the sake of “transparency.” While the undertaking typically occurs in a private conclave and is off the record, Molloy noted that the Grace case has drawn wide public interest, and suggested that forthrightness might help clarify the complex legal details.

Instead, the judge summoned lawyers for an in-chambers confab, excluding the media and other courtroom spectators. The about-face prompted some observers to wonder if the judge might be winnowing certain charges out of the eight-count indictment, a decision he has full authority to make.

Molloy has yet to rule on a host of defense motions for acquittal, and previously intimated that he would reserve judgment until after the jury returns a verdict; however, he may do so at any time.

Most daunting for the government is whether the evidence shows that Grace’s alleged criminal actions occurred within an applicable time frame, which has been narrowed by statutes and deadlines. The criminal provision to the Clean Air Act, for example, wasn’t enacted until 1990, the same year the Libby mine ceased operations. Prosecutors therefore face the difficult task of proving that Grace committed overt criminal acts not only after 1990, but also after 1999. That’s when the contamination was discovered, triggering  a five-year statute of limitations.

The environmental crimes trial wrapped up much like it began, with testimony from two key government witnesses – Paul Peronard, an emergency coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Melvin Parker, a sickened Libby resident who bought asbestos-contaminated mining property from Grace.

“Life is a circle,” quipped Grace’s lead attorney, David Bernick, as he commenced a final round of legal sparring with Peronard.

Thomas Frongillo, who represents former Grace vice president Robert Bettacchi, conducted a quarrelsome examination of Parker, contesting the veracity of the Libby man’s earlier testimony.

Specifically, Frongillo grilled Parker about previous statements that he made about having no knowledge about the health hazards associated with asbestos-laced vermiculite, which was scattered across the property when he bought it.

Frongillo concluded the examination by accusing Parker of lying outright, saying he feigned ignorance about the asbestos hazards when the EPA arrived in order to recoup his financial losses, and to justify a lawsuit.

Parker had a clear motive for “sticking to his guns,” Frongillo said.
“If you changed the story and you admitted you knew as far back as 1993 that there was asbestos contamination on your property, then you wouldn’t have gotten to keep the $1.3 million the EPA gave you for the property,” Frongillo said. “And if you had told the truth, your lawsuit against Grace, which is based on the allegation that all this information had been hidden from you, that lawsuit would have been a total fraud.”

Frongillo accused Parker of knowing all about the extent of the contamination, and yet “decided to go forward [with the land purchase] with your eyes wide open.”

But Parker, who bought the land in 1993 in order to build a tree nursery with his wife, Lerah, stood his ground. He maintained that neither Grace officials nor government agents ever told him the vermiculite-strewn property posed a danger to him or his family, who lived on the property for a half-dozen years.

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin