The owners of e-scrap processor Total Reclaim have been sentenced to 28 months in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges related to their export of LCD devices to Hong Kong.
In a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court today, Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle, owners of Seattle-based Total Reclaim, each received sentences of two years and four months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The Department of Justice issued a release about the sentencing.
Lorch and Zirkle were also ordered to pay more than $945,000 in restitution, most of which is owed to the Washington Materials Management & Financing Authority, an extended producer responsibility organization that funds collection and processing across the state.
According to sentencing documents, Zirkle will begin serving his sentence no sooner than July 23, and Lorch will begin his sentence about a year later. The court recommended they serve their time at a prison in Sheridan, Ore.
Trouble began for Total Reclaim in 2016, when the Basel Action Network (BAN), an industry watchdog group, released a report detailing the results of a year-long investigation into the company’s exporting practices. The company admitted that it exported LCDs to Hong Kong, and in the months and years that followed, it lost certification, was prohibited from participating in state e-scrap programs in Oregon and Washington, and was ordered to pay hefty fines in both states.
In November 2018, the saga took a turn as a federal criminal case opened against the company owners. Prosecutors on Nov. 14 charged Lorch and Zirkle with one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, alleging they deceived customers by misrepresenting how e-scrap was being handled. Lorch and Zirkle pleaded guilty the following day.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office had harsh words for the two executives, stating in a release that Lorch and Zirkle “betrayed every pledge they made to be good environmental stewards.”
“They protected their salaries of more than a million dollars a year, while harming the environment and risking the lives of disadvantaged Chinese workers who struggle daily just to support their families,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said in the release.
Lorch and Zirkle offered their own side of the story in an open letter published by E-Scrap News in January, explaining that they “made a very poor business decision, one driven by financial and operational considerations, which reflected a lack of mindfulness on our parts of all of the consequences which could result.” They expressed remorse and said others in the e-scrap industry should learn from their mistakes.
Photo credit: Charlie’s/Shutterstock
