The state environmental case against Christopher Filos, former owner of HPM in Mt. Gilead, was recently dismissed in Morrow County Common Pleas Court.
Filos faced one count of illegal storage of hazardous waste, which is an unclassified felony. The charge stems from his time as the owner of HPM.
During his tenure as owner of HPM, the Ohio EPA found his business to be in violation of numerous hazardous waste storage regulations.
The EPA first found the business to be in violation of their guidelines in June of 2008.
Since their initial findings in 2008, the Ohio EPA cited the business five additional times during site investigations.
It was not until 2013, when the USEPA, cleaned the property that hazardous material was removed.
Filos notably arranged a plea deal in a separate case, in which he was indicted by the Morrow County Grand Jury on charges of aggravated theft, (F3); failure to remit state income tax withheld (F5); and theft (F4).
As part of the plea agreement, the theft charges had a ‘change of defendant’ from Christopher Filos to Taylor Industrial Services LLC.
Under what is known as a bill of information, he pleaded guilty to all three counts. He waived his right to a jury trial.
Filos changed his plea on count two from not guilty to guilty and was ordered to remit restitution to the Village of Mt. Gilead in the amount of $44,687.47 by Sept. 30, 2015.
As president of Taylor Industrial services LLC, Filos represented the corporation and pleaded guilty to counts one and three (the theft charges). As Taylor Industries, he agreed to pay restitution of approximately $216,811.21 over a 24 month period and was to appear today for sentencing in that case.
Failure to meet any part of the agreed upon plea deal would result in revocation of the plea, and Filos could face possible jail time of up to 11 months.
The charges against Filos will be diverted if he fulfills the requirements of the plea deal.
