TIRE HAULER CONVICTED IN ST. MARY’S COUNTY

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today that Kenneth Eugene Snowden, 47, of the 10000 block of Woodlawn Boulevard in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, plead guilty yesterday before Judge John F. Slade, III in St. Mary’s County District Court, to illegally hauling scrap tires without a hauler’s license. Snowden was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $2,500. In suspending the fine, Judge Slade noted that Snowden had spent 47 days in jail awaiting trial after failing to appear for his scheduled trial in August. The maximum criminal penalty for hauling scrap tires without a license is a $10,000 fine.

Snowden was arrested in a stolen truck filled with tires in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 2002, after authorities learned that Snowden hauled scrap tires from a Mechanicsville tire store a day earlier. Investigators with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Environmental Crimes Unit and the Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes Unit were able to trace the tires back to several locations in St. Mary’s and Prince George’s Counties. Snowden had his scrap tire hauler’s license revoked by the Maryland Department of the Environment in 1999. Criminal charges in Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia are still pending.

“The illegal disposal of scrap tires is not only a public health threat, but a blight on communities around our State,” Attorney General Curran said. “It is the responsibility of tire store owners to use only licensed haulers to block the flow of illegally dumped tires.”

Maryland requires tire dealers to use licensed scrap tire haulers to help prevent illegal tire dumping. Last year, the Maryland Department of the Environment spent over $2.6 million to clean-up illegal scrap tire dumps. Individual property owners are also victimized with untold additional clean-up costs each year.

This conviction follows a joint investigation conducted by the Environmental Crimes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, and the Maryland State Police with the assistance of the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Scrap Tire Program.

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