The company and bosses of the five men killed in a fiery explosion in a bunker at a Waikele storage facility last year should not have had their workers dismantling fireworks because they didn’t have the proper state permit to do so, according to criminal charges against them.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging Donaldson Enterprises, Director of Operations Charles Donaldson and project manager Carlton Finley with conspiring, aiding, abetting and treating hazardous waste without a permit.
Donaldson, an ordnance disposal company, held a contract to store confiscated fireworks and leasing space in the bunker.
Bryan Cabalce, Robert Kevin Freeman, Justin Joseph Kelii, Robert Leahey and Neil Benjamin Sprankle died in the April 8, 2011, explosion and fire.
The indictment says the five men were dismantling commercial-grade fireworks by breaking them apart, cutting them open and/or soaking them in diesel fuel.
According to lawsuits filed by their families, the workers had been dismantling the fireworks outside the company’s rented storage unit on a concrete pad but moved inside because of rain.
The men were cutting open the casings with tools similar to scissors and mixing the removed gunpowder with diesel fuel. They used a small electric pump to move diesel from the fuel barrels to barrels containing the gunpowder, the lawsuits said.
The indictment says Donaldson Enterprises did at one time have a permit to transport some of the fireworks to Koko Head Shooting Complex to dispose of them by burning, which it did. However, at the time of the fatal explosion, the permit had long been expired.
The state Department of Health’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch issued the company a temporary emergency permit on or about June 8, 2010. The 90-day permit expired Sept. 5.
Each of the three defendants is charged with having the workers treat the leftover fireworks on 20 separate occasions after the permit expired starting on Sept. 8, 2010, up to and including the day of the explosion.
Charles Donaldson declined comment on the indictment.
The company did not return telephone messages.
Finley could not be reached by telephone.
The fireworks that were being dismantled at the time of the explosion were believed to have been confiscated in connection with two separate criminal prosecutions.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 10,252 pounds of commercial-grade fireworks in 2007 and 12,650 pounds of fireworks shipped from China in 2009.
Christina Everett pleaded guilty to importing explosive material without a permit in September 2009 in connection with the first seizure. A federal judge later sentenced her to six months in jail and fined her $1,500.
A federal jury found Gifford Koon Fo Chang not guilty earlier this month of all charges in connection with the second fireworks seizure. He argued that he ordered consumer-grade fireworks, which do not require getting a license, and didn’t know the Chinese company sent him unapproved fireworks instead.
