John Chenoweth: “Mr. Poszgai went in after mortgaging everything he had and buying up this 14-acre parcel of property, he cleaned it up…”

“Mr. Poszgai went in after mortgaging everything he had and buying up this 14-acre parcel of property, he cleaned it up, took 7,000 tires off the property, and was immediately charged with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. He was arrested in his place of business and hauled off because he had destroyed a wetland by taking the tires off of his property. Now, this is a Hungarian immigrant who had very little money. He did not even have a lawyer before. He was taken to court after his home was searched for guns, Mr. Chairman. How in the world could a Federal Government even reason that there was reasonable cause to believe that a gun was used in the commission of a crime which was to remove 7,000 tires from private property? But nevertheless his home was searched. He stood trial. The judge narrowly instructed the jury about their only responsibility was to determine if Mr. Poszgai had destroyed a wetland or not. The jury came back and said, yes, Mr. Poszgai had destroyed a wetland. This judge sentenced him to three years in Allenwood Federal Penitentiary, fined him $200,000, told him that he had to dig down on half of his property so that it became wetlands, this federal judge in Philadelphia. That is the reality of what we are trying to fight. When I first met Mr. Poszgai, he was at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary. He finally served his sentence out. But that is what is happening to our people out there.”