Owner of Seattle Barrel Can’t Shake Clean Water Act Convictions

The owner of Seattle Barrel Company, a small business that refurbishes industrial drums, lost an appeal to undo his Clean Water Act convictions, after the Ninth Circuit said he wasn’t prejudiced by the government’s failure to disclose parts of a key witness’s immigration file.

The jury already knew that the witness—an undocumented non-citizen named Dennis Leiva—was cooperating with the government and had received immigration benefits. And the jury was specifically instructed that his testimony should be examined with relatively greater caution, the court said in the unpublished Wednesday decision.

Leiva’s testimony wasn’t the only evidence linking Louie Sanft to Seattle ...