Workers’ Toxic Exposure Ruled Unintentional; Bosses Acquitted

CHICAGO — Five current or former corporate executives of a wire-coating plant were “careless housekeepers,” but not criminals, a judge said Thursday in acquitting them of knowingly exposing employees to dangerous working conditions.

Criminal Court Judge Earl Strayhorn said prosecutors failed to prove that the Chicago Magnet Wire Corp. officials intentionally subjected workers to toxicity exceeding federal standards.

The trial was one of a handful in the United States in which executives have faced criminal charges stemming from factory working conditions.

In this case, prosecutors contended that 37 workers of the company in suburban Elk Grove Village suffered nerve and lung disorders, kidney problems and other ailments because of working conditions.

The employees, most of them Latinos who did not speak English, worked in dense smoke, with gases that made it difficult to breathe, prosecutors said. Toxic dust covered the factory floor, where heat in some spots approached 150 degrees, they said.

Prosecutor Jay Magnuson said: “Crimes coming from the executive suite are caused by one factor: pure, unadulterated greed.”

Strayhorn conceded that the profit motive frequently outweighed safety concerns at the Chicago Magnet Wire plant, where metal wire for use in transformers is coated.

“Each (of the defendants) was aware the plant was noisy, hot and noxious,” Strayhorn said. “The defendants were careless housekeepers.”

But there was no proof that the executives intentionally harmed workers, nor that there was any gross deviation from U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, said Strayhorn, who heard the case without a jury.

Attorney Patrick Tuite, representing former plant manager Kevin Keane, said Thursday’s ruling was “a victory for manufacturers--that they don’t have to be constantly worried about criminal indictments just because they have housekeeping problems.”

The executives faced charges of aggravated battery, reckless conduct and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. They faced up to five years in prison.