Contractor Pleads Not Guilty To Asbestos Violation -- MesoLink.org -- 04-10-06

A contractor from Long Beach recently pleaded not guilty to asbestos related charges, after being accused of improperly removing asbestos during the renovation of an East Ocean Boulevard condo. The 42-year-old contractor, Jonathan Herz, was charged with four counts of violating the Clean Air Act, to which he pleaded not guilty.

It was alleged that the man had been renovating his condo in 2003, and that during the course of the renovations he hired a number of teenagers to scrape asbestos from his ceiling, one of the teenagers being a girl just 16 years old.

The owner of Pentimento Construction, Herz asked the teenagers to scrape off the asbestos, which is a known carcinogenic, and he then asked the group of helpers to clean up the debris from the scraping of the substance.

Following the incident a complaint was received by authorities, and air quality inspectors went out to visit the property in Galaxy Towers. It was reported that asbestos waste had been disposed of in a number of places, from the ground to storage cupboards and in landfills.