Durango – Two tons of spoiled pizza dumped in the San Juan National Forest brought a former deliveryman two days in jail and a federal magistrate’s reprimand to his employer.
The 320 cases of previously frozen pizza appeared one day last summer as two soggy cardboard hillocks in the San Juan National Forest near Mancos.
A startled jogger reported the illegal delivery Aug. 28. Last week in federal court in Durango, Magistrate David West called the episode the most irresponsible corporate act he’d seen in the forest in 18 years on the bench.
West sentenced Ricky Tulio, 29, of Cortez to two days in jail for dumping the pizza, but he said that Tulio’s employer at the time, Schwan’s Distributing, should pay the restitution of $674.52.
“I think you were really stuck, but you picked the wrong one of all the options,” West told Tulio. “I’m imposing the restitution on Schwan’s because of the position they put you in.”
West wrote to Schwan’s Consumer Brands in Denver to tell the company to pay for the cleanup. The company has agreed to pay, a Forest Service official said.
Schwan’s spokesman Bill McCormick said Tuesday that the employee should have used an authorized Dumpster.
Forest Service official Lloyd McNeil, responding to what his colleagues call “the pizza caper,” used a pickup, horse trailer and two helpers, including the jogger, Larry Ott, to dispose of the mess over two days. Under each pile of pizza, McNeil found Schwan invoices.
“McNeil had to meticulously stack the pizzas inside the horse trailer to remove all the pizzas in only two trips,” Forest Service Special Agent Brenda Schultz said. Forest Service employees were equally aghast and amused, she said.
Schultz said the pizza incident started when employees at Schwan’s Cortez depot loaded a truck for commercial grocery distribution on Aug. 25, but forgot to turn on the refrigeration.
When Tulio showed up for work at 5:30 a.m. Aug. 28, he noted that the temperature of the truck’s storage compartment was about 70 degrees. His supervisor told Tulio to dispose of the pizzas.
The depot Dumpster wasn’t big enough, Schultz said, and Tulio was not given money or any other way to pay for dropping off the pizzas at the city dump.
Tulio, who pleaded guilty, took responsibility for his decision, Schultz said, and he lost his job.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
