2 Plead No Contest to Improper Inspections

Two men pleaded no contest to conducting illegal asbestos inspections and surveys of earthquake-damaged buildings Tuesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Guy Michael Alati, 28, of Whittier and Douglas Carroll Waters, 44, of Westlake Village, both employees of American Technologies Inc. in Orange, were charged with two counts each of working as asbestos-site surveillance technicians without the required certification, Deputy City Atty. Vincent B. Sato said.

They were fined a total of $5,470. In addition, Judge Susan Isacoff placed both men on two years probation. During that time, they must become certified and conduct no further inspections until then.

Sato said the two men are expected to take the certification test next month.

A state Division of Occupational Safety and Health investigation found that asbestos evaluations on homes in Chatsworth, Northridge and Sherman Oaks damaged by the Northridge earthquake were performed by Alati and Waters.

Neither was qualified to determine the cost of removing the potentially cancer-causing material from the buildings, said Sato, who heads the city attorney’s environmental protection Unit.

“They were under the impression, mistakenly so, that the law allowed people to do what they were doing if it was a preliminary inspection and for the purpose of assessing the cost of the work that needed to be done,” Sato said.

Sato said the two men were prosecuted as a warning to other unlicensed inspectors working in the San Fernando Valley “to straighten out the games that are being played out in the Valley.”

American Technologies could not be reached for comment Tuesday.