Georgia HVAC Executive Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Banned Refrigerants After Warning Employees: ‘Do Not Call the EPA’
A Georgia heating and cooling company executive admitted in federal court that he orchestrated the illegal importation of 500 cylinders of potent greenhouse gases from Peru, deliberately ignoring repeated warnings from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the shipment was unlawful.
William Randolph Hires, the former chief executive officer of Extreme Residential, pleaded guilty on February 9, 2026, to a one-count information charging him with violating the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act and the Clean Air Act. The plea was entered in the District of New Jersey before a federal judge. Sentencing is scheduled for June 17, 2026.
According to court documents, Hires’s company imported the bulk shipment of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, in April 2022 without securing the required consumption allowances mandated by the AIM Act. HFCs are synthetic refrigerants widely used in air conditioning systems that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The AIM Act directs the EPA to phase down their production and import.
Prosecutors detailed a paper trail showing that Hires was repeatedly cautioned by his own employees and directly by EPA officials that the transaction was forbidden. In July 2022, an EPA official explicitly informed a company employee via email that “it is not possible to import bulk HFCs without consumption allowances.” That warning was forwarded to Hires, along with another EPA message stating, “The HFC you listed (R-410A) is a regulated substance. So, if you do not have allowances, you cannot import those bulk HFC refrigerants.”
Despite the clear guidance, Hires pressed forward with the shipment, according to the charging documents. In an email to his staff, Hires acknowledged the regulatory risk but prioritized the delivery: “Yeah you have to be careful what agencies you’re reaching out to because the EPA . . . can create a hassle and they can hold our stuff up in customs there[.]”
He later instructed his employees to “get [the HFCs] on the ship and get it out to sea . . . don’t care what it takes.” In a final directive, Hires explicitly ordered his staff: “Do not call the EPA please do not.”
Extreme Residential, the Georgia-based company Hires led, has been administratively dissolved and will not face prosecution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Western Pennsylvania Man Charged in International Conspiracy to Produce and Distribute Torture Videos of Baby Monkeys
A Western Pennsylvania man has been charged with participating in a global online network that allegedly commissioned and distributed custom-made videos depicting the sexual torture and killing of baby monkeys, federal prosecutors announced.
Joseph Garrett Buckland was charged by information on February 26, 2026, in the Western District of Pennsylvania with conspiracy to create and distribute animal crush videos. The charges fall under Title 18, Section 48 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits the creation, sale, or distribution of depictions of animal cruelty.
According to the charging document, Buckland was an active participant in private Telegram groups dedicated to the production and dissemination of videos showing the extreme abuse of infant macaques and other small monkeys. Investigators allege that Buckland and his co-conspirators utilized cryptocurrency payment platforms to compensate individuals in Southeast Asia who produced the explicit videos on demand.
Prosecutors further allege that Buckland maintained an extensive digital archive of these videos and exerted control over how the content was distributed among group members. The investigation revealed a network designed to shield the identities of participants while facilitating the international trade in illegal animal crush content.