The officials and ordnance disposal company who were already facing charges that they improperly handled illegal fireworks that killed five workers in an explosion at a Waikele self-storage bunker in 2011 also illegally disposed of some of the fireworks at Schofield Barracks, according to a new federal grand jury indictment.
Donaldson Enterprises Inc. Director of Operations Charles Donaldson and project manager Carlton Finley were charged in 2012 with conspiring, aiding and abetting and treating hazardous waste without a state hazardous waste disposal permit for having their workers dismantle the fireworks at the company’s rented storage unit in Waikele.
Trial was scheduled for October.
That was before a federal grand jury returned another indictment Wednesday accusing DEI, Donaldson and Finley with disposing of the treated and dismantled fireworks and their residue at a Schofield Barracks range without a permit and without the Army’s knowledge. The new charges also accuse them of improperly storing the fireworks and of lying to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for telling the agency that they had disposed of all of the seized fireworks by Dec. 1, 2010, even though they hadn’t.
According to the indictment, Donaldson approached a Schofield range employee he knew and asked to use the range to dispose of the treated and dismantled fireworks. The company, Donaldson or Finley did not inform Schofield’s Environmental Division that they were using the range to dispose of the fireworks or advised any range personnel that what they were doing required a state permit, the indictment said.
The indictment charges DEI, Donaldson and Finley with disposing of fireworks at Schofield on 23 occasions between Dec. 1, 2010, and March 23, 2011.
DEI employees Bryan Cabalce, Robert Kevin Freeman, Justin Joseph Kelii, Robert Leahey and Neil Benjamin Sprankle died in an April 8, 2011, explosion and fire at the Waikele storage bunker. The indictment says the men were dismantling commercial-grade fireworks by breaking them apart, cutting them open and/or soaking them in diesel fuel.
The men were dismantling the fireworks outside the storage unit on a concrete pad but moved inside because of rain, according to lawsuits filed by their families. The lawsuits also say the men used a small electric pump to move diesel from fuel barrels to barrels containing the fireworks’ gunpowder.
