Former federal Superfund official indicted on fraud charges

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Apr. 08, 2004

Former federal Superfund official indicted on fraud charges
Associated Press


LOS ANGELES - The former head of the federal Superfund environmental cleanup program was indicted Wednesday on charges she concocted an elaborate scheme to defraud a client who had hired her company to clean up a contaminated site.

Rita Marie Lavelle, who served as an assistant administrator in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Reagan administration, faces one count of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to federal agents. Robert Cole, 67, of Ventura, also was indicted on one count of wire fraud.

Lavelle, of Temecula, forged documents to make it appear that the owner of a company ordered by the EPA to clean up a contaminated site owed Cole's hazardous waste storage company more than $52,000, prosecutors said.
(snip)

The two could face prison time and fines of more than $1 million, if convicted.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/8380896.htm

On edit:

The only article I could find on her in google said "Rita Marie Lavelle, served as a private secretary to then GovernorRonald Reagan. Later, she was sworn in byEdwin Meese to a presidential appointmentposition in Washington, D.C., as administrative director of the EnvironmentalProtection Agency."
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:pDPbbEhQrgIJ:www.lacea.com/News/Alive_V2N2_page_3.pdf+%22Rita+Marie+Lavelle%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[johnfunk]

1. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

That just made my entire morning! Rita "Toxic Shock" Lavelle was surely a role model for "Dioxin Ditz" Gale Norton, and just another reminder that Reagan still holds the recent record for number of aides and appointees indicted and convicted of felonies. In 1983, she was indicted for contempt of Congress and convicted for committing perjury.