FARMINGVILLE MAN CONVICTED OF FELONY ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES

(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Giampiero Cali, 48, of Farmingville, pleaded guilty to Endangering the Public Health, Safety or the Environment in the First Degree, a class C felony, and other related charges, for dumping hazardous materials in Suffolk County that originated from a Brooklyn demolition site.
 
“Suffolk is no one’s dump site,” said District Attorney Tierney. “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, a principal at Truck Tec Material Corporation, was charged with intentionally dumping acutely hazardous materials in the form of construction and demolition debris, sourced from a demolition site in Brooklyn, at CMM Landscape Supply in Yaphank. Cali’s unlawful conduct, which occurred on April 12, 2024, 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. 
It was further compounded by the fact that, pursuant to a corporate plea in separate case against Truck Tec Material Corporation, taken just two days earlier on April 10, 2024, Cali had been directed to dispose of this specific payload at Posillico Materials, a facility authorized to accept such material by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It was finally compounded by his effort to conceal his unlawful disposal at CMM by creating a “substitute” payload, which he attempted, but failed, to pass off as the original payload to both environmental crime investigators and Posillico.

The case against Truck Tec and Cali began in February 2024, when Cali directed a Truck Tec employee to pick up a payload of demolition debris in Brooklyn using a Truck Tec-registered commercial dump truck, and then bring that payload to a residential site in Medford for disposal.  When the employee arrived at the Brooklyn construction site, he texted Cali that the payload was not clean fill. Cali responded to the employee to take only small pieces, mix it with other fill to disguise its characteristics, and load it. The departing Truck Tec vehicle was flagged by members of the New York City Business Integrity Commission, who notified detectives with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Biological, Environmental, and Animal Safety Team (BEAST) to be on the lookout for the vehicle for possible illegal dumping. BEAST detectives then tracked the vehicle and intercepted it just as it was about to dump the dirty payload onto residential property in Medford.

The truck was impounded for safety violations and on suspicion of contaminated fill. A laboratory analysis was conducted on the fill and revealed the presence of cobalt, an acutely hazardous substance under New York State regulations.  Truck Tec, through corporate counsel, subsequently took a corporate plea for attempted unlawful disposal of solid waste, ultimately 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. 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 CMM staff that the payload was “clean fill,” resulting in a greatly reduced price for disposal and permission to dump on CMM grounds. 
When BEAST investigators soon thereafter confronted Cali, he fabricated paperwork with Posillico and attempted to pass off a separate load of fill as the contaminated payload. After BEAST investigators conducted a comparative fill analysis, Cali’s fraud was exposed. 

For his actions, Cali was subsequently indicted, in his individual capacity, for: 
•    One count of Endangering the public health, safety or the environment in the first degree, a Class C felony;
•    One count of Endangering the public health, safety or the environment in the third degree, a Class E felony;
•    Five counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, Class E felonies;
•    One count of Unlawful Dealing in Hazardous Wastes in the second degree, a Class A misdemeanor; and
•    One count of Unlawful disposal of solid waste, a Class B misdemeanor.  

On December 5, 2024, Cali pleaded guilty to all the charges contained in the indictment before Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard I. Horowitz.

Justice Horowitz sentenced Cali to 840 hours of environmentally-focused community service and five years of probation. If Cali is unable to complete all of the community service within six months, he will be sentenced to six months’ incarceration as an alternative.  In addition, Cali will have to pay an additional $50,000 in fines (on top of the $15,000 incurred against his corporation), and his dump truck has been forfeited to Suffolk County. Under New York State law, the District Attorney’s Office has the authority to seize and forfeit property used in the commission of environmental felony crimes. The District Attorney has continuously pledged to use every legal tool at his disposal, including civil asset forfeiture, to strip criminals of the means to commit these acts.

Cali was represented by Vito Palmieri, Esq.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Kendall Walsh and Jed Painter of the District Attorney’s Biological, Environmental and Animal Safety Team (BEAST), with Assistant District Attorneys Michael Reynolds and Craig Pavlik of the District Attorney’s Asset Forfeiture and Intelligence Bureau (AFIB) handling the civil asset forfeiture aspect of case. The criminal investigation was conducted by Detectives Walter Justincic, Thomas Smith, and Donna Giordano of the District Attorney’s Squad, with valued support from the NYC Business Integrity Commission and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The asset investigation was conducted by SCDA Detective Investigators Paul Rauseo and Michael Dunn.

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Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.

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