Two Baltimore trash haulers pleaded guilty this week to bribing landfill workers to dump trash without paying fees at the Quarantine Road facility, part of a wide-ranging scheme that investigators say cost the city $6 million over the course of a decade.
Adam Williams, 52, and Mustafa Sharif, 63, face up to five years in prison on counts of conspiracy and another 10 years on bribery, federal prosecutors said. They have agreed to pay back the $900,000 and $500,000 they owe, respectively.
Williams, who operated his own hauling company from 2007 until this year, admitted to paying a $100 bribe to a landfill employee for each trip he made to the landfill, saving him thousands of dollars in unpaid dumping fees, prosecutors said.
Sometimes the payments happened as Williams left the landfill; other times, he would meet operators at an off-site location and pay a week's worth of bribes or more, prosecutors said.
One day in 2012, Sharif was allowed to dump trash at the landfill without paying the fee. When he told Williams what had happened, Williams told him he could avoid the fee every time if he paid the $100 bribe, prosecutors said.
Sharif followed suit, paying either through Williams or directly to the landfill operators, sometimes at the site and other times at their homes, prosecutors said.
From July 2014 to May 2015, Williams and Sharif each paid more than $42,000 in bribe payments to dodge $120,000 and $150,000 in required waste disposal fees, prosecutors said.
Williams' sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 21. Sharif's is scheduled for Nov. 6.
An attorney for Williams declined to comment. Sharif's lawyer could not be reached Tuesday night.
Tamara Oliver Washington, 55, a Department of Public Works employee at the landfill who pleaded guilty earlier this month to the conspiracy and soliciting bribes, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 20.
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