Owner of thermometer factory gets probation for exposing workers to mercury

WEST BABYLON, N.Y. (AP) — The owner of a New York thermometer factory was sentenced Friday to three years of probation for failing to protect workers who were exposed to hazardous levels of mercury after a spill at his plant.

Robert Peyser, 66, of Bellmore on Long Island, and his company, Kessler Thermometer Corp., had earlier pleaded guilty in Suffolk County court to reckless endangerment for exposing employees to mercury and not providing proper ventilation or protective equipment.

The charges stemmed from an Aug. 29, 2022, mercury spill at Kessler's facility in West Babylon, the Suffolk County district attorney's office said.

Four workers were diagnosed with mercury poisoning in the weeks that followed, prosecutors said.

As a result of the exposure, one of the employees needed to get a pacemaker installed and another needs an oxygen tank to assist his breathing to this day, officials said.

“Kessler Thermometer Corp. knowingly endangered the lives and health of their employees by ignoring basic safeguards to control hazardous mercury in the workplace and failed to acknowledge its employees were being sickened by mercury exposure,” Kevin Sullivan, area director of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said in a statement.

Peyser and the company both pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment on Oct. 18. The company was ordered to pay $75,000 in fines on top of a $97,000 civil assessment for OSHA violations.

Peyser was sentenced to probation Friday and ordered to comply with all state and federal health and safety standards.

A message seeking comment was sent to Michael J. Brown, the attorney representing both Peyser and the company.

Exposure to mercury, a neurotoxin, can cause damage to the nervous system, lungs, kidney, heart and mental faculties.

Governments that met in 2013 at the Minamata Convention on Mercury in Kumamoto, Japan set a phaseout date of 2020 for the manufacture of mercury thermometers.