A man who admitted he conspired with others to illegally collect more than 1,000 waste tires that later burned in a massive fire in Nitro in 2006 was sentenced to one to five years in prison Wednesday in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Judge Tod Kaufman also fined Ricky Byron Handley $10,000, which is the statutory maximum, said Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Tera Salango.

Handley pleaded guilty in July, admitting that he conspired with U.S. Tire Recovery executives Brian Holdren and Dennis Henderson in November 2005 to collect more than 1,000 tires without a permit in a Nitro warehouse.

Although both Salango and defense attorney Duane Rosenlieb asked the judge to consider probation, Kaufman imposed a prison sentence, Salango said. Handley told the judge that he wanted to continue to provide for his family in Alabama, where he now lives, she said.

After the hearing, Rosenlieb said he was concerned that his client was being held accountable for the fire, which was not his fault.

"Once again, the shadow of that fire is hanging over his case. [Handley] was not charged with the fire. He didn't cause that fire," he said.

The pre-sentence report indicated the sprinkler system in the building wasn't working - one of the things that contributed to the fire, he said.

Rosenlieb noted that accumulating more than 1,000 tires is not criminal if the state Department of Environmental Protection issues a permit for the collection of tires.

"There's almost no other criminal statute in West Virginia that I can think of off the top of my head where it's criminal to do something without a permit, but if you have a permit it's not, and the commissioner can waive [the requirement for a permit]," he said.

A man who admitted he conspired with others to illegally collect more than 1,000 waste tires that later burned in a massive fire in Nitro in 2006 was sentenced to one to five years in prison Wednesday in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Judge Tod Kaufman also fined Ricky Byron Handley $10,000, which is the statutory maximum, said Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Tera Salango.

Handley pleaded guilty in July, admitting that he conspired with U.S. Tire Recovery executives Brian Holdren and Dennis Henderson in November 2005 to collect more than 1,000 tires without a permit in a Nitro warehouse.

Although both Salango and defense attorney Duane Rosenlieb asked the judge to consider probation, Kaufman imposed a prison sentence, Salango said. Handley told the judge that he wanted to continue to provide for his family in Alabama, where he now lives, she said.

After the hearing, Rosenlieb said he was concerned that his client was being held accountable for the fire, which was not his fault.

"Once again, the shadow of that fire is hanging over his case. [Handley] was not charged with the fire. He didn't cause that fire," he said.

The pre-sentence report indicated the sprinkler system in the building wasn't working - one of the things that contributed to the fire, he said.

Rosenlieb noted that accumulating more than 1,000 tires is not criminal if the state Department of Environmental Protection issues a permit for the collection of tires.

"There's almost no other criminal statute in West Virginia that I can think of off the top of my head where it's criminal to do something without a permit, but if you have a permit it's not, and the commissioner can waive [the requirement for a permit]," he said.

Although prosecutors described Handley as an owner of the U.S. Tire Recovery, he was an employee, Rosenlieb said.

Authorities estimated more than 40,000 tires burned in U.S. Tire Recovery's portion of the warehouse in the May 2006 inferno that burned for almost 24 hours. The fire took millions of gallons of water to put out. The state fire marshal later determined that the fire was set. No one has been arrested for setting the fire.

Court records indicate Handley pleaded guilty in federal court in Kentucky in February 2006 - three months before the warehouse fire - to dumping leachate, or fluid that seeps out of a landfill, into a sewer drain at the Cooksey Brothers Tire and Maintenance Facility in Ashland, Ky., in January 2005.

Rosenlieb said he was disappointed that documents from the Kentucky case appeared to influence the judge's decision when they hadn't been made a part of the pre-sentence report.

"If the court was going to be swayed by something in a prior case, then that should have been made available to the defendant as well," so that they can be addressed by the defense, he said.

As part of his plea deal in West Virginia, prosecutors agreed not to try to increase his possible sentence because he is a convicted felon.

Last week, U.S. Tire Recovery and the warehouse's owners, Chemvalley Properties, settled a class-action lawsuit, agreeing to pay $1.175 million to Nitro and St. Albans residents and business owners who had to shelter-in-place during the fire.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 348-1723.