Firm admits it failed to survey, remove coral while replacing lights
A Pembroke Park-based marine engineering firm ignored a requirement to survey and remove endangered coral while replacing channel marker range lights in the Port of Miami in 2014 and 2015, the company has admitted in federal court.
Facing a federal felony charge, Shoreline Foundation Vice President John McGee signed a proffer admitting that the company ignored state and federal permit requirements tied to a $2.9 million contract to replace four channel marker range lights used by boaters for navigation.
In exchange, prosecutors agreed to seek a penalty at the lower end of federal sentencing guidelines for the crime and to ask the court to agree that the company caused $30,000 in loss.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to provide information about the case not included in court filings. A sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 3.
The proffer signed by McGee; Shoreline’s attorney, Douglas Molloy; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jaime A. Raich states that the parties agree that “if this matter were to proceed to trial, the United States would prove facts beyond doubt.”
The document states that before starting the construction and demolition project, a subcontractor identified hundreds of coral species in pre-construction surveys at two of the sites, including several colonies of endangered Staghorn coral “in the radius of the construction footprint.”
One of the sites contained 231 colonies of coral and octocoral, and another contained 332 colonies, all of which “met the parameters for relocation,” the proffer said.
But construction the following a reasonable at the two sites commenced in July and September 2014 with Shoreline Foundation managers aware that the required coral relocation had not occurred, said.
The following year, the subcontractor reminded senior company managers the proffer that it was ready to conduct pre-demolition coral surveys that Shoreline was re-
quired to perform before demolishing four aging channel marker lights. The company demolished the marker lights without conducting the surveys, the proffer said.
“The defendant performed the demolition despite the knowledge of senior [Shoreline Foundation] managers that pre-demolition surveys had not occurred, that there had been no opportunity for the relocation of any coral within the demolition work zone and attached to the range lights.”
For both the construction and demolition phases, the company anchored a work barge by driving pilings into the seabed — a process called spudding — with no guidance from scientific divers about where to spud, according to the proffer.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on Aug. 29 filed an affidavit charging the company with submitting a “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent invoice” in June 2015 for $375,062 for work on the project that May. The invoice certified that the money was being sought “for performance in accordance with the specifications and conditions of the contract,” including, by extension, terms and conditions intended to protect life forms at the lowest level of the sea.
While preparing its final report of the project submitted in spring 2016, “a senior manager for the defendant discouraged the subcontractor from reporting the environmental compliance failures to the Coast Guard,” the proffer said.
Asked Tuesday whether the company received the $375,062 it sought through “false, fictitious, and fraudulent invoice,” U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Sarah Schall said she could not “provide confirmation” because the information is not in the public record.
In September, the attorney, Molloy, of Fort Myersbased Molloy Law, said the company planned to take responsibility for “mistakes” amounting to about $30,000 in damages. The employee responsible for the error in the “bidding and reporting process” is no longer with the company, Molloy said.
On Tuesday, Molloy said by email, “The company has a great reputation in the business community. They have taken full responsibility for this incident, and the guilty plea reflects that.”