Former Greenfield official is sentenced to two years for pollution case

Aug. 7—SCRANTON — A former Greenfield Twp. supervisor and manager of its municipal sewer authority will spend two years in federal custody for polluting water and concealing the problem from other officials.

Bruce Evans Sr., 70, is a "poster child" for bad government, U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion said during a nearly two-hour-long sentencing hearing Monday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Olshefski said the result has been soaring sewer rates, financial trouble for the township and division in the community of approximately 2,400 residents.

Melissa Graziano, a sewer authority board member, said residents paid $82.50 per quarter on their sewer bill in 2017 — roughly a year before Evans Sr. was indicted on federal charges. Today, they pay $92.50 per month.

Placing Evans Sr. on either probation or home confinement would be an "insult," Olshefski said.

Evans Sr. acknowledged he has made "mistakes" but said to the judge he has put his his life into his community and is proud of what he has accomplished.

Moments before Mannion imposed sentence, he seemed resigned to what would come next.

"I am prepared to accept the consequences," Evans Sr. said.

A federal jury found Evans guilty in December 2021 of 20 Clean Water Act violations, four counts of wire fraud for using sewer authority funds for his and his families personal benefit and four counts of obstruction for intercepting state Department of Environmental Protection mail addressed to fellow sewer board members.

The jury also convicted Bruce Evans Jr., who is Evans Sr.'s son and a former sewage treatment plant operator, of four Clean Water Act violations.

Evans Jr. was sentenced in April to one year and one day in custody and is currently incarcerated at a low-security facility in Butner, North Carolina.

Authorities said the pair failed to operate and maintain the township's sewage treatment plant to ensure that discharges into a tributary of Dundaff Creek met with federal standards. That tributary flows into Tunkhannock Creek and into the Susquehanna River.

"Either we're going to care about our environment or we're not," Olshefski said.

The two men have laid the blame with the plant's former engineer, David Klepadlo, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to falsifying records and tampering with a witness. He was sentenced in 2020 to three years of supervised release and one year of home detention.

Evans Sr.'s friends and family attended Monday's hearing to support him. Five people, including his wife, Jane Evans, testified on his behalf that the man they know and love is a devoted community servant who has never refused a call for help.

Authority solicitor Harry Coleman and board members Graziano and Patty Apostolakes also attended the hearing.

Evans Sr. worked as a volunteer township police officer from 1974 to 1980 and volunteered in the local Fire Department, becoming a deputy fire chief. He was first elected a township supervisor in 1985 and has served as a township roadmaster and sewer authority board member.

He resisted requests to resign amid his indictments and served as a supervisor until Dec. 31, 2021, when his term expired, prosecutors said.

He was convicted in federal court about two weeks earlier.

Evans Sr. has congestive heart failure, kidney disease and diabetes, Jane Evans said.

Her son, Evans Jr., also has medical issues and she testified he is not receiving proper treatment while incarcerated. She feared for her husband of nearly 50 years.

"If my husband is incarcerated it's a death sentence," she said. "He will die."

Olshefski said Evans Sr. has not demonstrated that the federal Bureau of Prisons cannot treat his illnesses. Mannion said he will request the BOP place Evans Sr. in a medical facility as opposed to a prison.

Evans Sr. must surrender to the BOP by 2 p.m. Sept. 1, Mannion ordered.

Evans Sr. and his attorney, Patrick Casey, declined to comment as they left the William J. Nealon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse.

An order on how much Evans Sr. must pay in restitution will be issued in the coming weeks.

Contact the writer: jkohut@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9100, x5187; @jkohutTT on Twitter.