Chicago Heights Recycling Business Owner Sentenced For Fraud

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — The owner of a former Chicago Heights recycling center has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for fraud that prosecutors said has cost victims millions of dollars and will cause extensive damage to the environment.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Brian Brundage, who owned Intercon Solutions in Chicago Heights, was sentenced Thursday. He had pleaded guilty in September to one count each of wire fraud and tax evasion. He also pleaded guilty to tax evasion worth $744,000 after he hid income from reselling e-waste.

He had promised stringent recycling practices and took in electronics and other hazardous materials, saying almost nothing would go to landfills. His clients included Texas Instruments Inc., Ericsson Wireless Communications and Tribune Co., which publishes the Tribune, the newspaper reported.

Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based environmental watchdog organization, had questioned his practices as far back as 2012. At the time, it accused Intercon of shipping electronic waste to China through a third party while telling its customers and the news media it does not export or landfill materials. BAN said photos of a shipping container on Intercon's property that ended up in Hong Kong, China was part of the proof it collected on the company.

Brundage took in $60 million in revenue, but placed most of the materials he collected in landfills, stored it in warehouses or sold it to businesses that resell it on international markets.

“The scope of the deception in this case is extraordinary,” the Tribune reported Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean J.B. Franzblau saying at Brundage's sentencing hearing.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.