The owner of a recycling plant accused of exposing South Los Angeles high school students to toxic waste and metal projectiles will be in jail for several days for decades as judges determined they violated court orders.
Matthew Weisenberg and Gary Weisenberg, owners of S&W Atlas Iron & Metal, were handcuffed and put on a Los Angeles court Thursday morning, and Superior Court Judge Terry Bork found they continued to pose a risk to the community by fixing explosive materials at cans on their site. A bail hearing will be held on Monday.
Weisenberg is awaiting 25 counts of failing to properly dispose of hazardous waste and failing to minimize exposure or fire risk at his Watt factory, which has been operating in Jordanian high schools for about 70 years.
The allegations are years of protests in lawsuits by community activists, students and Los Angeles Unified School District, where Atlas allegedly allowed “dangerous, sharp metal projectiles, exquisite metal dust and other objects to be fired or fired from its property.”
June 2023, the front district. Atti. George Gascón announced felony charges against the company and Weisenbergs, alleging that the plant exposed a dangerous explosion of Jordanian students and found a 75 times higher lead than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency believes it is safe.
Officials said the explosion at the atlas shocked Jordan's students on the first day of last year.
The Weissenbergs have been pleaded guilty to being released from prison since the charges were filed, but prosecutors filed a motion that argued that their investigation in the state’s toxic substances department found several containers in violation of the terms that released the clause earlier this month, and found several containers of ethylene containers, a highly flammable natural gas.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo Ocampo ordered Atlas not to accept any uncut or punctured natural gas containers to avoid potential future explosions. Weisenberg's defense attorneys Vicki Podberesky and Benjamin Gluck argued that their clients separated their clients as soon as they were discovered and kept them away from machines that could cause the explosion.
“There is evidence of real efforts to follow. I know it breaks. I understand the court doesn't want the jar to be all out,” Gluck said. “If someone drives the jar into our property, we want some guidance on what we can do.”
Gluck said it was illegal for Atlas employees to remove cans from the property alone, and that the company specializing in hazardous waste had not been picked up and dropped off when it visited March 6, and the company's investigators and investigators from the toxic substances department had been picked up and dropped off.
Bock didn't sway.
“The problem is that they're not in the middle of the desert, but hundreds of high school students are on the wall,” Bolk said.
He continued: “Judge Ocampo decided not to designate bail or to take the defendant into custody agreement, an agreement he ordered and relied on.”
An atlas spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bock ordered Wesenberg to go to jail until he could hold a hearing to determine the appropriate bail on Monday.
“Today is the first time that Atlas Metal owners have felt the consequences of decades of damage to the Watts community,” Genesis Cruz, a former Jordanian high school student, said in a statement. “We still hope this step marks the end of their reckless and dangerous actions and the harm it has caused to generations of students.”
Times worker Clara Harter contributed to the report.
