A federal judge sentenced Carl Fioravanti, a 58-year-old asbestos remediation contractor who lives in Highland, Indiana, to more than six and a half years in prison for lying to regulators about asbestos removal at two suburban Chicago demolition sites, including a Waukegan medical campus where workers wore no protective gear while carcinogenic dust filled the air. U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama handed down the 80-month sentence, telling Fioravanti his conduct amounted to a particularly callous pursuit of money.
According to the Chicago Tribune, which first reported the sentencing in an article by Jason Meisner, Fioravanti owned a remediation company responsible for asbestos removal at Lake Behavioral Hospital in Waukegan and had collected more than $1.8 million from the general contractor on that job. Fioravanti pleaded guilty in June to wire fraud and tax fraud, admitting he knew the Waukegan site had not been fully remediated but directed employees to dump asbestos-filled debris with other materials anyway.
A Scheme That Started at a Harvey Hotel
The case traces back to the 2018 demolition of the old Chicago Park Hotel near 170th and Halsted streets in Harvey, a project contracted by the Cook County Land Bank Authority. That site had involved roughly $11 million borrowed in 2008–2010 before the land bank acquired it in 2017 for planned demolition, according to the Daily Southtown. Per the Tribune's reporting, Fioravanti admitted he lied about safely removing asbestos during that Harvey demolition and altered manifests to hide improper disposal, with asbestos-filled debris ultimately dumped in a landfill owned by James Bracken that was unfit for hazardous materials.
Federal prosecutors initially indicted Fioravanti in October 2023 on a single count of obstruction of justice tied to the Harvey manifests, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The case also involved the Waukegan hospital site and tax fraud, per court filings tracked on PacerMonitor.
Workers Left Unprotected at the Hospital Site
At the Waukegan hospital demolition, which involved tearing down a former hospital building, residential staff housing, and a boiler plant at 2615 Washington Street, demolition workers wore no protective gear as the work proceeded amid alleged regulatory violations, the Tribune reported. Judge Valderrama found that Fioravanti continued the scheme knowing demolition workers would send carcinogenic material airborne, and he said the conduct meant workers could carry asbestos particles home to their families.
The general contractor on the Waukegan project ended up spending more than $26 million on site cleanup and legal and regulatory expenses after work was halted in November 2023, the Tribune's reporting states. Klf Enterprises served as the main demolition contractor for both the Harvey and Waukegan projects and used Fioravanti's company for specialized asbestos removal, with James Bracken, who owns Klf Enterprises, under investigation by the FBI, though he has not been charged with wrongdoing.
Broader Enforcement Actions Beyond the Criminal Case
The criminal sentencing is not the only legal action stemming from the Waukegan project. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a civil lawsuit in Lake County Circuit Court in June 2024 against hospital owner V Covington Realty LLC, general contractor Reed Illinois Corp., prime contractor Klf Enterprises, and Alliance Environmental Control over alleged airborne asbestos releases during the demolition, according to a statement from the Illinois Attorney General. Separately, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations in May 2024 against site operators and contractors after investigating multi-employer worker exposure to hazardous asbestos dust at the demolition, per OSHA.
Klf Enterprises had also separately secured more than $8.3 million in public contracts with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and was noted in 2024 reporting as linked to federal public corruption probes involving municipal permits in suburban Cook County, according to the Daily Southtown. Federal Clean Air Act rules under the EPA's National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants require facility owners or demolition contractors to conduct pre-demolition asbestos inspections and notify environmental authorities in writing at least 10 working days before demolition begins, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes.
Prosecutors Sought a Longer Sentence
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman had requested up to 97 months in prison for Fioravanti, arguing he knew the inherent dangers of asbestos, the Tribune reported. Fioravanti's defense attorneys requested leniency, telling the court he had built an otherwise successful business, had no criminal record, and cut corners after getting in over his head with the hospital demolition. They said he never set out to hurt anyone.
Fioravanti admitted he made choices he knew were wrong and apologized to the court and anyone he had harmed. His guilty plea did not include an agreement to cooperate with federal investigators. Prosecutors said Fioravanti filed falsified individual and corporate tax returns over eight years, avoiding more than $2.7 million in state and federal taxes.
The EPA classifies all forms of asbestos as known human carcinogens, noting that inhaled airborne fibers can cause mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis, diseases that typically take 20 to 50 years to manifest after exposure. That latency period, cited by the EPA, underscores why Judge Valderrama treated Fioravanti's conduct as a grave public health risk rather than a simple regulatory paperwork violation. Civil litigation over the Waukegan site and investigations into Klf Enterprises' broader contracting footprint remain active.
