AG Office Sues Recycling Co. For Misuse of State Money

By Anthonia Akitunde in News on Oct 3, 2009 7:30PM

The Illinois attorney general's office has sued a Chicago recycling company for misusing $88,000 of state grant money administered during former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's term, the Tribune reports.

The company is also accused of storing hazardous material in a Riverdale warehouse.

According to the report, River Shannon Recycling Technologies Inc. was "accused of spending the money on items outside the grant agreements, failing to supply documentation of its purchases and failing to recycle electronic goods as promised." The $88,000 was in state economic development grant money.

This isn't the Chicago-based company's first brush with the law. In 2007 the south suburban village of Riverdale sued the company for holding "thousands of mercury-laden fluorescent light bulbs and used electronic equipment in a warehouse without obtaining the federally required permit," the report said. River Shannon settled the lawsuit last year and agreed to remove all the hazardous material from the warehouse, but lost a city contract to recycle light bulbs in the process.

The company saw more trouble when Lee Anglin, the Riverdale warehouse owner, told the Tribune he was "paying bribes to a Cook County official to keep the recycling business open," the report continues. Anglin is currently in jail waiting for a sentence on charges he defrauded 43 investors in 3 states of $5.2 million dollars in a "real estate investment scheme" involving the warehouse.

River Shannon is currently under further federal investigation.

[Tribune]