Botched Pest Control Costs Jail Time, $30,000

The operator of a Granada Hills pest-control business was sentenced Friday to five years’ probation and four days in County Jail after pleading no contest to 10 misdemeanor counts stemming from an incident last summer that caused the hospitalization of seven employees of a Beverly Hills department store.

Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Michael Nash imposed the sentence on Charles Leonard Gallo, 55, of Woodland Hills, who was accused of working without a license and improperly applying a cockroach pesticide at the Neiman-Marcus store in Beverly Hills on Aug. 19.

In a plea bargain with prosecutors, Gallo, owner of a company called The Eliminator, also agreed to pay a total of nearly $30,000 in fines, court costs and restitution to the hospitalized workers, Deputy City Atty. Keith W. Pritsker said.

In return, prosecutors dropped 20 other misdemeanor counts filed against Gallo in November. Gallo’s no-contest plea was to eight counts of operating without a pesticide license and two counts of misapplication of a pesticide.

Pritsker said the sentence was harsher than usually given for business-related offenses because of Gallo’s record.

Gallo was sentenced to two years’ probation after pleading no contest to doing pest-control work without a license in November, 1983. That case involved a restaurant at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel that was closed after its kitchen became contaminated by boric acid, the prosecutor said.

Pritsker said that Gallo, working at Neiman-Marcus last year, was careless in his application of powdered boric acid, which is commonly used to combat cockroaches. Usually the powder is applied only in cracks and crevices, but it was spread in areas of the store where employees work, Pritsker said.

Medical bills for the seven store employees, who complained of “eye, nose and throat irritation,” totaled $9,133, Pritsker said.