The former head of the federal Superfund environmental cleanup program was found guilty on Monday of concocting a scheme to defraud a client who had hired her consulting company for an environmental cleanup project.
Rita Marie Lavelle, who served as an assistant administrator in the US Environmental Protection Agency during the Reagan administration, was convicted of wire fraud and making false statements to federal agents.
Lavelle, of Temecula, forged documents to make it appear that the owner of a company ordered by the EPA to clean up a contaminated site owed Cole's hazardous waste storage company more than $52,000, prosecutors said.
Virgil Cole, a business associate involved in the case, previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
Lavelle and Cole allegedly used the forged documents to obtain more than $36,000 from factoring firm Capital Partners USA Inc.
The jury deliberated for less than a day before returning its verdict.
