Felony charges have been filed against...a whole public utility?

Yes folks, you heard that right and good for it too. This case is one of the more egregious of the bunch in recent times for dropping the ball so hard is would crack granite.

Some may recall this better as the blast that destroyed a whole neighborhood in California a while back.

Pacific Gas and Electric was charged on Tuesday with federal felony counts involving safety violations linked to a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The indictment charges the utility with 12 felonies and accuses it of violating numerous federal pipeline safety laws.

Federal prosecutors allege that PG&E knowingly relied on erroneous and incomplete information when assessing the safety of the pipeline that eventually ruptured, sparked a fireball and leveled 38 homes in San Bruno.

Source

That source also mentions the fact that this isn't unprecedented, which is encouraging. It was done before in 1999 with a filing of criminal charges against a Washington state company that leaked a huge amount of gasoline into an open creek, flowing through a park. There were fatalities and three company officials went to prison or ended up with probation. In scale, I believe this matches or tops that in outrage, as well as outcome. The level of loss is also much different.

Something tells me that PG&E won't skate so easily on this one. To dig into it, the details are ugly and I think these charges may just require some corporate sacrifice to satisfy.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


PG&E is Huge in California. Probably one of the largest utilities in the US. Some heads are gonna roll. Money will flow.

Maybe somebody didn't pay off the right politician.

Serious question here. When an individual commits a felony, they go to prison.

What happens with this being a company name getting 12 counts of felony? That would put a person away for a long long long long time.......

reply to post by sarra1833


A corporation is a person these days. Don't know how you put a company in jail though . Someone could start up a logo jail.
But more than likely a lower level person/people will take the rap.

Put it this way:

Drug companies have been repeatedly convicted for either fraud related to marketing to doctors, or fraud in covering up studies showing efficacy and safety.

All have received criminal convictions. Fines.

No jail time.



Wait what?

If a small time person incorporated themselves and sold vitamins (not even drugs) and those vitamins killed someone. Or they were lying about what was in the vitamins. It would be very likely for them to be criminally prosecuted. Again, if you started a company and sold illegal goods through it *criminal charges and jail time.

So...

Why the discrepancy with big time companies? Where's the jail time. Heck, I know how things work. But at least throw a sacrificial lamb into the fire, round up a scapegoat, find a board member with terminal cancer and pin it on him, convict for show.

reply to post by sarra1833


They go to a golf resort-prison. The elites do not go to a lowly prison that you or I would be sent to.
I would imagine that the CEO will be the one getting charged. Maybe some supervisors over that particular section. But again, they will only be sent to a hotel for bad, rich people.

In China, people were executed for putting melamine into baby formula. Not surprisingly, this has not been repeated.

If the Board of Directors were interested in a bit more than 'profits', knowing that their heads were literally on the line, maybe they would keep better track of the President, CEO and other executives and what they were up to. Most Boards of Directors just show up once a year for a 'meeting', can literally say nothing the whole time and go home with 50K for their troubles, plus the stock profits.

Time to make all utilities publicly owned and operated for the sake of the end users. I once lived in a town where the electric utility was owned by the town itself; they bought electricity on the open market and priced it at cost; it was half what everyone else was paying, and so low you could heat a house with electricity in the NE, which is otherwise unheard-of.

With this particular OP's issue though, I wonder if earth movement accounts for leaking pipes, especially it being in California?

Whether a corporation is a person or not is ultimately a State decision but members of that corporation are responsible so actual people will be the target of these felonies. At least they can afford the best attorneys - most of whom are already on payroll.