Maryland officials accused a Baltimore man of illegally dumping containers of barium nitrate and flammable liquids throughout the city in February 2023 after the owner and employee of a shipping business paid him to dispose of the hazardous materials.

The objective, prosecutors allege, was to free up space in the company’s leased portion of an Eastern Avenue warehouse, the Maryland Attorney General’s office said in a Wednesday news release. The containers of hazardous waste dropped in Baltimore’s Kresson, Orangeville and Perkins neighborhoods, some marked with “skulls and crossbones” logos, had been left over by a previous tenant, according to indictments filed in August against the three men.

The transloading business’s owner, Anthony Lamont Simmons, was scheduled to appear in court in early November to face multiple environmental charges, including conspiracy to illegally dispose of a controlled hazardous substance and a handful of felony dumping charges. Orlando Pagan, the 35-year-old who authorities say carried out the three dumps over the course of a week last year, faces similar charges, as does Simmons’ employee, Jeremy Scott Thompson.

Thompson’s defense attorney, Michael Tomko, said Wednesday afternoon that it would be “premature” for him to comment on the case before reviewing all of the discovery. Simmons’ lawyer, Thomas Wray McCurdy, did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. Pagan did not have a defense attorney listed in court records.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement that the three indictments “demonstrate that improperly discarding harmful chemicals is not just bad business — it will be prosecuted.”

“We cannot allow businesses or their workers to risk public health by dumping toxic substances near our homes, playgrounds, or public spaces,” he said. “Hazardous materials pose serious dangers and must be disposed of safely, not left on the street where they can cause illness or even death.”

Court records do not name Simmons’ business, though his LinkedIn profile identifies him as the owner of a trucking company called AKA Transportation. State business records identify Simmons, 53, as the resident agent for that limited liability company as well as a defunct entity called Simmons Transportation.

The indictments allege that Simmons’ business began leasing space at the former Apollo Warehouse, a building in Southeast Baltimore just south of the dip in Eastern Avenue that connects Highlandtown to Greektown, in January 2023. After the lease began, he “noticed a large amount of hazardous material left behind by the previous tenant,” according to the indictments. That’s when prosecutors believe he directed Thompson, 32, to “facilitate disposal of that waste to free up space in the warehouse,” the indictments say.

The pollutants were first discovered under the Lombard Street bridge, on the 4500 block of East Lombard Street, on the evening of Feb. 16, 2023, the same day prosecutors allege Simmons and Thompson paid Pagan $500 to get rid of the substances. A 911 caller had reported that “individuals were dumping waste from a pick-up truck” under the bridge and noted a “strong chemical smell.”

Once Baltimore Fire Department crews arrived at the scene, they found a collection of drums, bags and boxes labeled as hazardous chemicals, according to the indictments. Some were “open and actively leaking to the ground,” prosecutors said. One of them, the indictments say, was marked with a shipping label that included the Apollo Warehouse’s address.

Emergency response crews from the Maryland Department of the Environment identified the materials as controlled hazardous substances and called in a contractor to clean up the dumped material, which included barium nitrate and flammable liquids, the indictments say.

The next day, fire department crews responded to another dumping call at a business in Orangeville, finding similar materials behind the address of Tony’s Place, a former strip club on the 4200 block of East Monument Street. Surveillance footage from those two locations showed Pagan operating a blue pickup truck that dumped the material, according to the indictments. A week later, investigators found similar containers at a third dump site near residential buildings in Southeast Baltimore, the indictments say.

The three defendants are due in Baltimore Circuit Court on Nov. 8, according to court records.

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