Greek crew member acquitted of dumping charges

HOUSTON

A federal jury in Houston has acquitted a Greek crew member of an oil tanker ship of charges that he engineered the dumping of waste off the Texas coast in early 2009.

The acquittal of Ioannis Mylonakis came Wednesday after a nearly weeklong trial. Federal prosecutors had accused him of ordering his crew to use a pipe to bypass pollution control equipment and discharge sludge and oily waste into the Gulf of Mexico near Houston and Corpus Christi, then altering paperwork to hide this.

Defense attorney Joel Androphy says his client was a temporary crew member who knew nothing about the dumping.

In October, the Panamanian company that operated the 40,000-ton tanker ship pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $1 million fine for concealing the dumping.