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According to the felony complaint, Dominic Campo was the chief executive officer of World Waste Services, which was an independent waste service provider based out of Almont that serviced residential, commercial and municipal waste collection and disposal throughout Huron, Sanilac, Tuscola, Lapeer and St. Clair counties.

In July of 2000, WWS purchased Cove Landfill of Bad Axe, Inc., whose primary business was collecting, recycling, processing and disposal of waste. Dominic was listed as the president of the corporation in papers filled with the State of Michigan and became associated with Sharon Campo (who was also arraigned Thursday), Richard L. Evarts (vice-president of WWS and Cove Landfill), Donald Schroat and Stan Doll at that time.

According to the complaint, Cove Landfill was a facility that was not capable of handling recyclables, so the previous owners would transport them to other recycling facilities throughout the state. But when Dominic took over; things changed quickly. "After the change in ownership, these recycling facilities witnessed a very large decrease in the receipt of recyclables or received none at all," the court documents stated.

Several WWS and Cove Landfill employees cooberated that information. Fred Longtine, who oversaw the daily operations of the waste haul drivers for WWS, told investigators that Dominic, Schroat and Evarts "knew of and permitted the co-mingling of recyclable waste with regular waste and the subsequent landfilling of both at Cove Landfill," which was a violation of Huron County's Solid Waste Plan.

Melanie Longtine, a former WWS employee whose responsibilities included logging the point of origin from which waste was coming, explained to investigators she was told by Schroat to record waste from Arenac, Shiawassee and St. Clair counties as coming from Huron, Sanilac, Tuscola and Lapeer counties.

The forgeries
On or about August 12 and September 10 of 2002, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) entered into a consent agreement with Dominic in order to resolve alleged violations at Cove Landfill that were detailed in a Letter of Warning and a Notice of Violation for violations of Part 115 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act (Solid Waste).

Cove Landfill was fined $80,000 for the infractions, but the agreement included a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP), which would have credited them for half the cost of the penalties. The proposed SEP called for Cove Landfill to collect and recycle tires, as well as locate and dispose of abandoned mobile homes in Huron, Tuscola, Sanilac and Lapeer County.

In order for the MDEQ to accept the proposed SEP, they needed signed letters of support from the various local communities.

In March 2003, Chief Assisting Prosecuting Attorney Steve Allen, in his capacity as corporate council for the Huron County Board of Commissioners, became aware of WWS and some of their suspicious activities when St. Clair County began to investigate and follow trucks originating from Macomb to Cove and from St. Clair to Cove.

Other suspicions were aroused when officials from WWS offered to pay Huron County a tipping fee sometime in 2001 or 2002. A tipping fee is paid to the township/city where a landfill is located (in this case Sheridan) and the fee is calculated by cubic yardage or tonnage of waste dumped at the landfill.

When asked why the company wanted to pay the fee to Huron County as well, their answer was "(for) good will." Allen said in an interview Friday, he felt their offer back then "didn't ring true."

He also explained that in early 2003, Don Booms and Hank Weitenberner, who were commissioners at the time, were near the Almont area and went to WWS headquarters to see when the county might be paid this tipping fee. They dealt with Rick Everett, who offered them a check for $4,000, which was a portion of what the county was owed. Everett explained they shouldn't cash the check until Friday and as their suspicions grew, they told him just to send it in the mail.

On the way back, they stopped at the landfill, where Booms spoke with Schroat, who according to Allen was on probation at the time for accepting a $10,000 bribe in the Southgate area. Schroat tried to entice Huron County to sign on to the SEP, claiming other communities already had.

When asked to see a letter to that affect, Schroat produced a copy of a letter from Sanilac County that stated they were interested in participating in the SEP. This peeked Booms' interest.

In early March, Booms discussed the project with Robert Wood from Sanilac County, who had no idea what Booms was talking about. When Booms produced the letter, Wood explained his signature was forged. When the letter was shown to Karen Havens, the Secretary of the Sanilac County Board of Commissioners, she pointed out that the document was on old letterhead and that one of names on it was misspelled.

With this information, Booms (in his role as a commissioner) approached Allen, which led to an investigation by Sgt. Roberts and Det. Koehler. As the duo worked the case, they came across Det. Sgt. Thomas Wassa, who was conducting another investigation that correlated to what they were doing. They agreed to work together and eventually made a case for charges of obtaining money under false pretenses, forgery and money laundering.

It was discovered during the investigation that signatures for officials from Bad Axe, Caseville, Elkton, Port Austin, Port Hope, Sebewaing Vassar, Reese, Cass City, Akron, Unionville, North Branch, Millington and Caro were forged on letters supporting the SEP.

False pretenses
Allen explained that WWS obtained money under false pretenses as they had contracts with local communities where they charged the community amounts per family/per month for waste removal. A portion of that money was specifically paid for proper disposal of recyclables.

According to court documents, Bad Axe City Manager John Nugent told investigators "the city had a contractual agreement with Cove Landfill of Bad Axe, Inc. from March 15, 1999 through June 20, 2002 for the removal of residential waste." The city paid more than $348,700 during that period.

WWS assumed the contract in July 2000 and entered into a new contract with them from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2005 at the rate of $9.01 per household/per month. For that amount, WWS was responsible for disposing of recyclables, regular waste and compost wastes separately. According to the felony complaint, the contract was worth over $10,000 a month.

This was also the case in Elkton, where they had a contract with WWS from February 9, 2000 through March 30, 2003. That contract called for the village to pay a minimum of $8.31 per household for 333 households; this resulted in payments in excess of $102,379.00 to WWS.

The City of Harbor Beach paid $9.10 per household/per month for 734 households from October 1, 1999 through September 30, 2001 as part of a contract, which WWS assumed in July 2000. This resulted in payments in excess of $89,000 from the city.

They entered into a new contract from October 1, 2001 through September 30, 2005 and paid $7.20 per household/per month. With 734 households, Harbor Beach was paying over $5,000 a month to WWS until they ceased doing business in the county.

The Village of Pigeon contracted WWS for waste pick-up from March 1, 2002 through February 28, 2005. For that service they paid $8.45 per month/per household for a total of 475 households, which resulted in payments of over $4,000 a month.

The Village of Port Austin paid WWS $8.32 per month/per household from March 1, 2002 through February 28, 2005. With 300 households in the village, this resulted in payments of around $2,500 per month.

From September 30, 1999 through September 30, 2002, the Village of Ubly paid between $8.15-$8.40 (on a graduated scale) per household/per month for waste disposal for 386 households. WWS assumed the contract as of July 2000. During the contract period, the village paid WWS in excess of $84,939.

Money laundering
According to Allen, WWS was bringing in cash proceeds between $1,000 and $3,000 per day and "skimming" proceeds from WWS and some of their other corporate entities.

The Campos would then take the proceeds to Detroit area casinos and purchase chips in amounts around $2,000-3,000. Some time after purchasing the chips, they would cash them all in at once in order to generate a Currency Transaction Report. A CTR is filed by a U.S. financial institution for each deposit, withdrawal and exchange of currency, as well as payments and transfers by, through or to the institution that are in amounts exceeding $10,000.

Allen explained that this is how the Campos were laundering their money. The CTRs would provide a "legitimate" source for the money they had stolen from the corporation if they were ever questioned by the IRS or other government agencies. As Allen put it, "they were creating a paper trail."

According to the felony complaint, there are numerous items that were purchased as the result of this activity that are subject to mandatory forfeiture if the Campos are convicted. Items listed for possible forfeiture include: