Long Island Man, Company To Pay Around $65K In Environmental Dumping Case: DA

RIVERSIDE, NY — A Long Island man, who was the principal of a construction company, and his company will pay about $65,000 in fines and community service in connection with dumping hazardous materials from a New York City demolition site in Suffolk, District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

Giampiero Cali, a 48-year-old Farmingville resident and a principal at Truck Tec Material Corporation, was charged in connection with intentionally dumping acutely hazardous materials in the form of construction and demolition debris at CMM Landscape Supply in Yaphank in April, Tierney's office said.

He was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines, on top of the $15,000 incurred against his corporation, and his dump truck has been forfeited to the county, according to Tierney's office.

Cali was sentenced to 840 hours of environmentally-focused community service, as well as five years of probation, and if he is unable to complete all of the community service within six months, he will be sentenced to six months’ incarceration as an alternative, Tierney's office said.

Cali pleaded guilty Thursday to first-and third-degree endangering the public health, safety, or the environment, first-degree falsifying business records, and second-degree unlawful dealing in hazardous wastes, and one count of unlawful disposal of solid waste.

“Suffolk is no one’s dump site,” Tierney said. “This is our home. I will continue to devote substantial resources to ensure we have the purest land, air, and water, not only for our enjoyment, but for our health and safety.”

Cali's attorney, Vito Palmieri of Mineola, could not be immediately reached for comment.

His conduct was "compounded by his effort to defraud CMM staff that his payload consisted of clean fill, a deception without which he would not have been able to dump at that facility," prosecutors said.

It was further compounded by the fact that, pursuant to a corporate plea in separate case against the company, taken just two days earlier on April 10, 2024, Cali had been directed to dispose of the payload at Posillico Materials in Farmingdale, which is a facility authorized to accept such material by the states Department of Environmental Conservation, according to prosecutors.

It was finally compounded by his effort to conceal his unlawful disposal at CMM by creating a substitute payload, which he tried, but failed, to pass off as the original payload to both environmental crime investigators and Posillico, prosecutors said.

The case against the company and Cali began in February 2024, when Cali directed one of his
employees to pick up a payload of demolition debris in Brooklyn using one of the company's registered commercial dump trucks, and then bringing the payload to a residential site in Medford for disposal, according to prosecutors.

When the employee arrived at the construction site in Brooklyn, he texted Cali that the payload was not clean fill, prosecutors said, adding, that Cali responded, telling them to take only small pieces, mix it with other fill to disguise its characteristics, and then load it.

The departing vehicle was flagged by members of the New York City Business Integrity Commission, who notified detectives with the DA’s Biological, Environmental, and Animal Safety Team to be on the lookout for the vehicle for possible illegal dumping, prosecutors said.

BEAST detectives then tracked the vehicle and intercepted it just as it was about to dump the dirty payload onto residential property in Medford, according to prosecutors.

The truck was impounded for safety violations and on suspicion of contaminated fill, prosecutors said, adding that a laboratory analysis was conducted on the fill, showing the presence of cobalt, an acutely hazardous substance under state regulations.

Truck Tec, through counsel, pleaded guilty to attempted unlawful disposal of solid waste, resulting in a $15,000 fine against the corporation with a direction to cure all safety violations with the truck itself, and to dispose of the dirty payload at Posillico Materials with compliance reporting on each aspect to the court, prosecutors said.

Cali initially made arrangements with Posillico, however, after permissions were secured to release the truck, he instead drove the contaminated payload to CMM, where he falsely informed staff that the payload was clean fill, resulting in a greatly reduced price for disposal and permission to dump on the grounds, according to prosecutors.

When BEAST investigators confronted Cali, he fabricated paperwork with Posillico and tried to pass off a separate load of fill as the contaminated payload, prosecutors said.

After BEAST investigators conducted a comparative fill analysis, Cali’s fraud was exposed, according to prosecutors.