Department of Justice Seal Department of Justice
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2002
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
ENRD
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES GUILTY PLEA IN NEW JERSEY
ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES CASE


WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Department of Justice announced today that Alan Hodgson pled guilty to a one-count information charging him with knowingly failing to file reports required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Hodgson was the former Northeast Regional Operations Manager for Edison, N.J.-based SGS Control Services, Inc.

Hodgson withheld quarterly Reformulated Gasoline and Anti-Dumping Batch Reports from the EPA in order to hide false analyses that he provided to certain SGS customers. Known as "bubble reports" in the gasoline refining and blending industry, these documents allow EPA to track compliance with a program designed to get cleaner-burning, reformulated gasoline into areas afflicted by air pollution.

"This prosecution demonstrates that the United States will not hesitate to prosecute those who falsify or withhold reports in ways that undermine our ability to enforce the nation's environmental laws," said Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Hodgson's former company, SGS Control Services, provides measurement and analytical services to the petroleum industry. In particular, SGS laboratories certify the quality of various grades of gasoline. When Hodgson managed operations at SGS, he would sometimes provide petroleum blenders with certificates showing that their gasoline met environmental specifications when, in fact, the gasoline was substandard. Rather than report these false certifications to the EPA, Hodgson withheld the required bubble reports. Such reports are pivotal to the EPA's reformulated gasoline program, which is founded on truthful self-reporting by refiners, blenders and their independent laboratories.

Hodgson's guilty plea was the result of an agreement between Hodgson and the Environmental Crimes Section of the Department of Justice. Hodgson has agreed to cooperate with the government in its continuing investigations of laboratory fraud. The Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division and the United States Postal Inspection Service investigated this case.

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