BUTLER COUNTY — The 12th District Court of Appeals upheld a Butler County Common Pleas decision Monday that found two former Fairfield company executives guilty of several charges related to dumping hazardous waste in West Chester Twp.

Attorneys for John Grinstead and Larry Lough — former executives of the now defunct company Tri E Technologies, formerly located at 100 Security Drive in Fairfield — claim the trial court erred in upholding the convictions against their clients because they were not supported by sufficient evidence and were against the weight of the evidence.

Their attorneys also claim they were deprived of their constitutional right to the effective assistance of trial counsel.

According to the opinion written by Judge Robert Ringland, no evidence of errors were found during the jury trial, and the court did not agree that Grinstead and Lough received ineffective assistance from their attorney, David Washington Jr. Judges Robert Hendrickson and Rachel Hutzel concurred in the opinion.

Washington represented the men during a four-day jury court. The law firm Sirkin, Kinsley and Nazzarine represented the men in appellate court.

On May 20, 2009, the Butler County grand jury indicted Grinstead and Lough for failing to prepare a hazardous waste manifest, the illegal transportation, disposal and storage of hazardous waste, and criminal endangering.

According to the charges, Grinstead and Lough were accused of transporting and disposing of more than 100 tones of cathode ray tube glass — a component used in television and computer monitors that contain lead — on a West Chester Twp. property owned by Ray Skinner.

Then on Dec. 16, 2009, Grinstead and Lough were indicted on similar charges for abandoning more than 9,000 pounds of hazardous materials in their Fairfield facility following their eviction. Lough was also indicted on pollution charges for ordering a former employee to dump several hundred gallons of acidic materials into a storm drain that flowed into a local pond.

On June 29, 2010, the two were sentenced five years community control, each. Lough was fined $21,000 and Grinstead was fined $25,000, and both men were each ordered to pay more than $25,500 in restitution. Lough may choose to pay $2,500 of his fine to Butler County MetroParks.

Both men were also ordered to split the fines levied against Tri E Technologies, which total $31,000.

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