Attorney General Announces Reimbursements

To Former Commercial Customers of Waste Disposal Companies

HARTFORD – Attorney General George Jepsen announced today that reimbursement checks totaling approximately $166,000 have been mailed to former commercial customers of Automated Waste Disposal Inc. and Thomas Refuse Services, Inc.

The payments result from an April, 2011 settlement of an antitrust and unfair trade practices lawsuit against James E. Galante, the former owner of the waste disposal companies operating in the Danbury area, who is now serving a federal prison sentence.

“Connecticut’s business environment is best served when companies conduct themselves with honesty and integrity,” said Attorney General Jepsen. “I am pleased we were able to reimburse the overcharges to some of the commercial customers who were harmed.”

The Attorney General brought a lawsuit in 2009 to recover improper overcharges to the accounts of approximately 500 commercial customers in Connecticut in 2002 and 2004. After the $600,000 state settlement was approved by the court last year, eligible customers were notified about the process for reimbursement and 73 submitted claim forms by the Nov. 14, 2011 deadline. They should expect to receive their checks this week.

Another $425,000 of the settlement will be transferred to the General Fund.

The settlement funds came from the federal government’s sale of these and other companies Galante forfeited after pleading guilty in 2008 to racketeering, conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and wire-fraud conspiracy for his role in orchestrating a scheme to drive up trash-removal prices.

The charges followed a long-term investigation into the waste-hauling industry in Connecticut and eastern New York by the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigative Division.

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