Carter CCS trial set for next month

Published 10:18 am Thursday, August 26, 2010

Larry Carter will find out next month if he will serve two years in prison for allegedly failing to clean up a dumpsite at the cemetery he owns.

Carter, owner of Highland Memorial Gardens in South Point, was arraigned Wednesday in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court Wednesday on charges that he violated the terms of his community-controlled sanctions by not cleaning up the site to the satisfaction of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Judge Scott Bowling sentenced Carter May 25 to four years of community-controlled sanctions and fined him $10,000 for a felony open dumping charge.

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Bowling also stipulated that Carter must clean up the site or be sentenced to two years in prison.

Carter has not cleaned up the site adequately, according to a document filed Aug. 20 by the Bureau of Community Corrections of Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.

Carter denied that charge Wednesday in court when he appeared with his new attorney Mark McCown.

“We believe that it is clean to the standards ordered by the courts,” McCown said after the hearing.

Carter had previously been represented by Mike Davenport but Carter fired him, Davenport said.

Carter will face a CCS violation trial Sept. 15.