Tire Recycler Indicted for Filing False Claims

A Multicounty Grand Jury in Oklahoma unsealed an indictment against Keith Jones on April 12, alleging Jones fraudulently billed the Oklahoma Tax Commission for reimbursement from the Waste Tire Indemnity Fund.

Oklahoma County District Court Attorney General Drew Edmondson said Jones was indicted on 16 counts of presenting a false claim against the state.

Edmondson’s Environmental Protection Unit, in conjunction with the Multicounty Grand Jury Unit, brought the case before the grand jury. The case was referred to the Oklahoma Environmental Crimes Task Force by the Department of Environmental Quality.

 “The waste tire act allows the Department of Environmental Quality to identify illegal tire dumps that need to be cleaned up,” Edmondson said. “Companies participating in the clean up program remove the tires from the dumps, count the tires and submit a claim to the Tax Commission who pays the claims on a per-tire basis.”

The waste tire act requires companies participating in the program to recycle the tires. One method available for recycling is to use the tires as erosion control along Oklahoma streams.

 “We allege Jones removed tires from dumps on the DEQ list but submitted claims for more tires than he actually hauled,” Edmondson said. “Our investigation discovered he did this on 16 different occasions between November 1998 and May 1999.”

Edmondson said Jones, president of Environmental River Erosion Control, is accused of fraudulently billing the Tax Commission on 16 separate claims which exceeded $590,000 for ten river erosion control projects.

 “Jones did not complete four of the projects and left large volumes of tires at the sites,” Edmondson said. “The state was forced to spend almost $500,000 cleaning up the new tire dumps he created.”

Michael Dean, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, said basically Jones was moving waste tires from one location to another without any processing of the material being performed.