ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
A PLEA BARGAIN in Rocky Mount lets a president and general manager of a destroyed tire recycling business answer to misdemeanor charges if they will testify against other company officials charged with permit violations.
Two executives of Virginia Rubber Recycling, a Rocky Mount tire shredding business that burned to the ground last year, were convicted Wednesday of misdemeanor charges related to improper operation of the plant.
After reaching an agreement with prosecutors, Rufe Bynum III, a Texas-based company president, and Larry Boyd, who was general manager of the facility, each pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of interfering with someone else's property, said Franklin County Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood.
Virginia Rubber was renting the State Street building that housed its operations.
The two men had been facing multiple felony counts of operating a solid-waste facility without an adequate permit.
As part of the plea agreement, Bynum and Boyd will, if asked, testify against two other Virginia Rubber executives - Marcus Haley and Raymond Bishop - who still face the multiple felony counts, Hapgood said. Haley and Bishop are out of the state, he said.
Wednesday's ruling by Circuit Court Judge B.A. Davis III prohibits Bynum or Boyd from operating a tire disposal or recycling business in Virginia for five years.
Davis also ordered Bynum to pay $5,000 restitution to the owners of a Roanoke warehouse where tires were dumped without adequate permits, Hapgood said. No criminal charges have been filed regarding the warehouse on Cleveland Avenue in Southwest Roanoke.
Bynum and Boyd were sentenced to three years in jail, suspended pending their compliance with the terms of the plea arrangement, Hapgood said.
The Virginia Rubber plant site is now a gravel parking lot with mobile homes displayed on it.
The fire that destroyed the building was initially investigated as an arson by the Rocky Mount police and the Virginia State Police, but the cause was later tied to faulty wiring on a piece of machinery.
The fire brought attention to a series of problems Virginia Rubber had experienced since it began operation about a year earlier.
The company had been charged with violating a town conditional-use permit regarding its storage of tires, some of its payroll checks had bounced, and it had laid off several employees.
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