Former FirstEnergy engineer guilty on 3 of 5 counts

A former FirstEnergy Corp. engineer was found guilty Tuesday afternoon by a U.S. District Court jury on three of five counts he faced for lying or withholding information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about Davis-Besse’s operating status in the fall of 2001.

A federal jury deliberated over three days before returning the verdict against Andrew Siemaszko, a native of Poland.


…The four-member defense team claimed throughout the trial that Mr. Siemaszko was set up by the NRC, the Department of Justice, and the utility as a scapegoat for the near-catastrophe at the plant in Ottawa County.

Mr. Siemaszko’s attorneys maintained he was trying to get Davis-Besse’s old reactor head fixed in 2000.

Upon inspection in early April of 2002, the head was found in a near-ruptured state – the worst ever for an in-service U.S. nuclear reactor. Its dangerous condition was blamed on years of neglect and a massive cover-up.

Subsequent laboratory tests showed it was a statistical fluke that it held together. If it hadn’t, deadly radioactive steam would have formed in containment for the first time since the half-core meltdown of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear plant in 1979.

Toledo Blade