The former captain of a 600-foot chemical tanker that dumped thousands of gallons of waste into the Atlantic Ocean while docked in South Carolina’s port can return home to the Philippines.
A federal judge sentenced Genaro Anciano on Monday to time served. The 52-year-old, who pleaded guilty last month to felony obstruction, had faced up to five years in prison for lying to U.S. Coast Guard investigators about the oily bilge waste dumped in August 2015, reports.
Prosecutors say Anciano eventually helped build their case against Green Sky crew members who were convicted in a jury trial last month.
The sentence “was a just result after so much separation from his family and in view of his invaluable assistance he provided to the prosecution,” said his attorney, Ryan Gilsenan. “This has taken a terrible toll on the Anciano family. . . . His financial future is in peril.”
Anciano said Monday through an interpreter that he was told to keep quiet and feared for his job.
In a separate hearing in Charleston, Green Sky’s operator, Aegean Shipping Management, was fined $2 million.
Judge Margaret Seymour ordered the Greece-based company to pay $1.7 million for trying to cover up the pollution and $300,000 to Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, a protected natural reef off the Georgia coast.
The company had pleaded guilty to felony charges of aiding and abetting and obstruction. However, Aegean’s attorney, George Chalos, told Seymour the company is committed to protecting the environment and doesn’t know why crew members dumped waste into the ocean.
Prosecutors want $500,000 of the fine to be split between Green Sky’s three whistleblowers. That request is pending.
The whistleblowers told the Coast Guard that bilge waste was being illegally dumped into the ocean through a “magic pipe” — a hose that bypassed the ship’s oil and water separator, according to court records.
Both the company’s and Anciano’s guilty pleas were sealed until the jury trial concluded last month.
Chief engineer Panagiotis Koutoukakis was convicted of falsifying the ship’s oil record book. Herbert Julian, his successor, was convicted of obstruction. Both men will be sentenced later.
Green Sky is part of a fleet that Aegean markets as having new technology that reduces pollutants. The ship is registered in Liberia and owned by an entity incorporated in the Marshall Islands.
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Source: Associated Press
