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Contractor's Tarpon employees face Okla. bribery, fraud charges

The Holiday company is accused of illegally dumping lead paint around bridges it was hired to clean and paint.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published December 14, 2005

A Holiday-based bridge painting contractor and its employees are in hot water with Oklahoma authorities for alleged environmental crimes and felony bribery and conspiracy.

M.B.E. Inc. of FL, a Florida corporation since 1995, is accused of illegally dumping lead-based paint on the ground around Oklahoma bridges it was hired to clean and paint.

And two of the company's officials, both Tarpon Springs residents, are facing charges for paying off an inspector to get a good report with a state environmental agency.

Fani Gialousis, M.B.E.'s 49-year-old president, and Manuel Gialousis, a 28-year-old project supervisor for the company, each were charged Nov. 29 in Oklahoma County District Court with three counts of bribery and one count of conspiracy to defraud.

Both felonies carry up to 10 years in prison and/or up to a $5,000 fine.

"M.B.E. disputes those charges," Keith Klein, the Gialousises' attorney in Oklahoma City, said Tuesday. "We don't agree they're valid. We intend to fight them."

The Gialousises did not respond to the St. Petersburg Times' phone calls on Tuesday.

"I doubt they'll return your call," said a woman who answered the phone at M.B.E.'s Holiday office, which is located at 4125 Louis Ave.

M.B.E. is approved to paint bridges in Florida, state records show. Since 2002, the Florida Department of Transportation has awarded the company five contracts statewide totaling more than $2-million.

The company doesn't have any contracts in Pasco County, according to online county records, which date back to 2001.

But it once did big business in Oklahoma, having been hired for 36 projects there between 1997 and 2003, according to The Daily Oklahoman.

The projects required sandblasting aging, lead-based paint from bridges and overpasses and then repainting them. The paint was considered hazardous waste and required special disposal procedures to avoid lead poisoning.

Oklahoma state environmental investigators found that M.B.E. instead transported the hazardous waste to illegal storage sites and abandoned large quantities under the bridges, records show.

Last year, prosecutors in four counties filed criminal charges against the company, Fani Gialousis, Manuel Gialousis and 58-year-old Tony Gialousis, the company's former vice president and also a Tarpon Springs resident. It was unclear Tuesday how, or if, the Gialousises are related.

After the criminal charges, the Federal Highway Administration suspended the company and the three employees in May from bidding on any federal transportation projects.

In recent months, three of those counties have dropped the charges under a consent order issued by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. The order required M.B.E. to pay a $25,000 fine and to clean up several bridge sites, records show.

But prosecutors in Oklahoma County are pushing forward. Still pending are charges against Tony and Manuel Gialousis for improperly transporting and disposing hazardous waste, said Debra Forshee, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

Fani and Manuel Gialousis are accused of buying airline tickets for a contract inspector to go to New Orleans in June 2002 when he was supposed to be inspecting their job site.

The inspector, who also faces criminal charges, said he then felt he owed company officials a favor. So he falsified reports about their work even though he knew they were improperly sandblasting a bridge, The Daily Oklahoman reported.

Garrett Therolf contributed to this report. Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 727 869-6236 or cjenkins@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 14, 2005, 00:15:15]