Illegal waste dumper violates probation; sent to state prison
This pile of construction and debris waste was illegally dumped in August at Snyder Tire property on Route 443 in Lehighton. TIMES NEWS FILE PHOTO
A former Pennsylvania resident who admitted illegal dumping operations and was sentenced to a long probation period and ordered to clean up the dump sites was recently resentenced to a state prison term after a judge ruled he violated the terms of his probation.
Michael Lee Stine, 47, formerly of Mount Bethel, Northampton County, and now of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and his former company, MS Recycling of Bangor, were placed on probation for 10 years but told if he cleaned up the sites in a year the probation period would be reduced to three years.
The Carbon County Adult Probation office filed a petition to revoke Stine’s probation for not cleaning up the dump sites as ordered.
On Aug. 14, Judge Joseph J. Matika found that Stine violated his probation and resentenced him to serve one to six years in a state correctional institution. Stine is currently an inmate in the state prison at Camp Hill, Cumberland County.
Stine pleaded in May 2018 to two counts of criminal mischief, both felony threes, and five counts of unlawful conduct, all misdemeanor threes. In a plea bargain with the state Attorney General’s office, all other counts were dropped. Stine was originally charged with 16 criminal counts and his company with 27.
The state charged that Stine had his employees dump construction and demolition waste at various locations in Carbon, Northampton and Luzerne counties. Most of the material came from a Staten Island, New York, location.
In Carbon County, East Penn Township police discovered the first pile, located on township-owned property along Riverview Road, on Aug. 20, 2014. The next day, a pile was found at Snyder Tire along Route 443 in Lehighton.
Over the next two weeks they discovered two additional piles on residential properties in East Penn and Franklin townships.
An additional pile had been dumped in Kline Township, Schuylkill County, near the intersection of Route 309 and Interstate 81.
Two of the property owners admitted that they had taken $300 from MS Recycling drivers in order to accept the construction debris.
Some of the cleanup of sites cost the states hundreds of thousands of dollars.
