AUBURN – The United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York Thursday announced that John Chick, 65, of 1 Dexter Avenue in Auburn, was sentenced by the U.S. Senior District Judge Frederick Scullin, to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $108,000 to the County in restitution for costs expended in cleaning up asbestos in the Cayuga County Board of Elections Building in Auburn, NY.

Chick was sentenced following his guilty plea to engaging in a conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act. The charge related to the illegal removal of asbestos from the Board of Elections Building between February and March 2006 and its subsequent improper disposal.

In his plea agreement, Chick admitted that he supervised a county worker and county inmates, and that the asbestos was improperly removed without first wetting it. 

Significant quantities of asbestos were released into the air, were otherwise scattered throughout the Board of Elections Building, and were disposed of improperly at a local landfill. In directing the illegal work, Chick acknowledged that he did not provide the county worker and prisoners with asbestos respirators or other protective clothing and equipment despite the presence of immense amounts of asbestos released into the air by the work.