Big Dig firm settles charge in US case

Acting US Attorney Michael K. Loucks accused the Brewster, N.Y., vendor in US District Court in Boston yesterday of failing to tell the highway project’s general contractor that a fast-drying epoxy provided by Powers was unsuitable to help secure a heavy drop ceiling in the Interstate 90 tunnel, according to prosecutors.

Under a tentative agreement with prosecutors that awaits approval by the court, Powers will plead guilty to a single count of making a false statement in connection with the construction of a federally approved highway project. If the agreement is accepted, Powers will pay a $100,000 fine and be placed on probation.

“This remained an ongoing criminal investigation,’’ Loucks said in a statement explaining why Powers was charged nine months after resolution of the state case. “We are pleased that this case will be resolved with a felony conviction, which we believe is the appropriate resolution of this case.’’

The relatively modest fine takes into account the company’s agreement last December to pay Massachusetts and Boston $16 million to resolve state criminal charges filed against it in state court by Attorney General Martha Coakley. In exchange for that settlement, prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge against Powers.

Powers also previously contributed $6 million to a $28.1 million settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit filed in state court by the family of a Jamaica Plain woman who was killed when the tunnel ceiling collapsed.

Jeffrey Powers, president of the epoxy vendor, said in a statement that “after years of exhaustive investigations by government officials in Massachusetts,’’ the company had agreed to plead guilty to a “technical charge involving a ‘false statement’ by omission.’’

Milena Del Valle, a 38-year-old mother, was crushed by tons of concrete that tumbled down on the car driven by her husband on July 10, 2006. The collapse contributed to a deluge of criminal and civil cases involving the Big Dig in federal and state courts.

Jeffrey A. Denner, a Boston lawyer whose firm represented Del Valle’s husband in the wrongful death suit, said he was pleased that details about the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death continue to emerge.

“Basically, the never-ending story continues to unravel,’’ he said.

Prosecutors contend that Powers knew through tests it had conducted that the fast-setting epoxy it provided did not perform under heavy loads as well as a slower-drying version that it also sold. Nonetheless, prosecutors alleged, Powers failed to disclose this in a 1999 design manual that it provided to Modern Continental Corp. of Cambridge, the general contractor, during the $15 billion highway project.

Jeffrey Powers disputed the account by prosecutors yesterday. Unbeknownst to his company, he said in a statement, Modern Continental in 1999 relied on a 1997 Powers brochure that did not distinguish between the two forms of epoxy for handling heavy loads.

However, a month later, before construction of the ceiling began, a Powers engineer did tell the state Highway Department that the fast-setting epoxy was not suitable for heavy loads, Powers said. And an engineering report later provided by Powers “clearly disclosed’’ that the fast-drying epoxy was approved for short-term use only, he added.

Jeffrey Powers said yesterday’s plea agreement “confirms that no individual Powers employee, past or present, engaged in any knowing misconduct.’’