Company President Convicted of Homicide In Deaths of Two Workers - By Jordan Barab, Confined Space
Occasionally, all too rarely, justice is done; those responsible for the preventable deaths of workers receive appropriate punishment.
The former president of a water and sewer company, Brent Weidman, has been found guilty by a jury of two counts of negligent homicide and two counts of endangerment in the deaths in 2001 of 26-year-old James Gamble and 62-year-old Gary Lanser, who were killed in a confined space incident while working on an underground sewage tank. Last year, Arizona prosecutors Christina Fitzpatrick and Mark Horlings convinced a jury to find the Far West Water and Sewer Company guilty on five of the six felony charges filed against it. In January, a Yuma judge imposed $1.77 million in criminal fines against the company.