VIDEO: Criminalizing America –Flushed Away

Watch the story of Lawrence Lewis, an engineer who was charged for unknowingly committing a crime by simply doing his job the way it had been done before him.

Lawrence Lewis worked at a military retirement home in Washington, D.C. that had problems with flooding. Lewis’ job was to contain the flooding as best as he could while they waited for a contractor to come address the problem fully. To do so, he simply did what had been standard procedure before his tenure there; he diverted the backed-up sewage drain to a storm drain that was thought to lead to the city’s sewage treatment system. The drain actually led to a waterway, and the federal prosecutor convicted Lewis with a felony in violation of the Clean Water Act. In addition to personal reputation damage, he was sentenced to one year probation under supervision.