Dive Brief:
- Quentin Glenn, 50, was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay more than $306,000 in restitution as part of a guilty plea for bribing Baltimore Department of Public Works employees in return for dumping waste at the Quarantine Road Landfill.
- Glenn owned and operated the trash hauling business Glenn Services LLC, according to his plea agreement.
- The judge also sentenced Jessie Lee Wilson, Jr., 41, to three years of probation for being involved in the scheme. Wilson was employed by Glenn Services as a truck driver.
Dive Insight:
This sentencing is the latest in a series of Baltimore-based employees pleading guilty to bribery schemes at the Quarantine Road Landfill. The landfill has faced corruption for a decade as trash haulers and Baltimore DPW workers made criminal deals to avoid tipping fees. In May 2015, a 2-year FBI probe uncovered five DPW employees that were involved in the schemes. More participants and trash haulers have since surfaced.
The U.S. Attorney's Office press release states: "According to facts agreed upon by Wilson and Glenn, at times when Wilson drove a truckload of trash to the Landfill, neither he nor Glenn Services was charged a disposal fee. In return, Glenn Services paid scale house employees a bribe of $100 per truckload of trash. After a certain number of unpaid trips, Glenn would arrange for himself or one of his drivers, including Wilson, to meet a scale house operator to pay the balance of the cash bribes."
In July 2015, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said of the criminal actions at the landfill, "Corrupt public employees rip off the taxpayers and undermine everyone’s faith in government." Other city employees and trash haulers should look to the Quarantine Road Landfill probe as an example of the hazards and consequences of participating in such criminal activity.