Trial comes to close
Criminal intent debated in closing arguments; jury to begin deliberations
SAN FRANCISCO — Alternately portraying PG&E as a wayward company willing to break the law and a group of decent, hardworking people, the prosecution and defense on Tuesday presented closing arguments in the embattled utility’s federal criminal trial.
Maintaining that PG&E made a series of deliberate choices to break pipeline safety regulations, the prosecution said the company intentionally obstructed the investigation into the blast, which killed eight people and leveled a San Bruno neighborhood in September 2010.
“PG&E is a company that lost its way,” assistant U.S. attorney Jeffrey Schenk told jurors. “For years, PG&E forced engineers to act more like business people than engineers. They made decisions to maximize profits instead of prioritizing safety.”
The defense, however, countered that PG&E employees and executives didn’t intentionally violate the law.
“Nobody at PG&E is criminal,” defense attorney Steven Bauer told the jury. “These are decent people, competent engineers, just trying to do their jobs.”
Prosecutors say that PG&E officials and engineers were well aware that they were skirting federal rules by deliberately spiking pressure on their older, more fragile pipelines and intentionally not undertaking relatively costly water pressure tests to determine the safety of the pipes.
“The engineers were not confused,” Schenk said. “They knew the differences between what the regulations were and what they were doing.”
Defense attorneys, though, have countered that PG&E engineers were wrestling with a bewildering array of federal rules about what sort of tests to apply to pipelines in the company’s aging system. Bauer argued that the prosecution failed to show a pattern of criminal conduct.
“What is this case about? It’s an elaborate second-guessing exercise,” Bauer said. “The employees never intentionally and willfully violated the rules.”
Prosecutors also argued that PG&E engineers and executives knowingly used inaccurate and flawed records as their foundation for operating the utility’s pipeline system. Government attorneys told the jury PG&E deliberately obstructed the National Transportation Safety Board probe into the blast by providing the NTSB with multiple versions of the company’s policy on spiking pressure on pipes.
“Misleading the NTSB is a crime,” Schenk said. “It was PG&E’s choice to mislead the NTSB. PG&E knew that the San Bruno explosion would become the hot spotlight that would reveal they had not been complying with the law.”
Bauer argued, however, that PG&E personnel were acting in “good faith” and attempted to comply with federal pipeline rules.
“What you saw were PG&E engineers grappling with the problem. That’s not criminal conduct. That’s not a conspiracy, trying to figure out how to comply with the regulations,” Bauer said. “There’s no scene in ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Goodfellas’ when people are sitting around and wondering if they are intentionally violating racketeering laws. People who are criminals don’t do that.”
Closing arguments were delayed by a hearing before jurors entered the court, and U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson decided to recess for the day before the defense completed its summation.
Henderson said he would consider a motion by prosecutors that the jury be shown photographs of the explosion before the start of deliberations.
In addition, prosecutors asked for permission to reopen their case because of comments Bauer made in his closing arguments.
The jury could begin deliberations Wednesday.
The utility has been charged with 12 counts of breaking federal laws, including the allegation that it obstructed the NTSB probe and charges that it violated pipeline safety regulations.
PG&E has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted on all counts, PG&E faces a fine of up to $562 million.