Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced Thursday guilty pleas and a $100,000 fine against Skyline Tower Painting and its president, holding them accountable for a 2022 tower-washing project that showered Baltimore with hazardous lead paint.

Brown said the company and its president, 43-year-old Christopher Mecklem, of Nebraska, pleaded guilty after state investigators concluded they released and mishandled paint contaminated with lead during the tower work. The investigation was led by the Attorney General’s Environmental and Natural Resources Crimes Unit.

Skyline was doing work from May 28-June 21, 2022, on the iconic Baltimore candelabra television tower, which is a 1,000-foot structure with three spires on Malden Avenue. The tower is operated by Television Tower Inc., a company jointly run by WBAL, WJZ and WMAR.

The television tower is in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood, approximately 400 yards from the Jones Falls River.

During the three weeks of work, Skyline used power washers to remove the existing paint containing lead. At the direction of Mecklem, Skyline employees scraped and power washed the tower without using containment measures or vacuums.

Videos and photographs taken by nearby residents showed they were not using any containment or mechanism to collect the waste being generated. During that period, red paint chips generated from the work were dropped onto residential neighborhoods, businesses, roads, forested areas, playgrounds, a community garden and a day care within a radius of approximately one-half mile of the tower.

“These reckless actions exposed children to dangerous lead paint chips, contaminating Baltimore playgrounds, yards, and even a daycare center,” Brown said in a release. “These guilty pleas send a clear message that we will prosecute those who endanger our communities and environment.”

The company pleaded guilty to one felony count of illegal disposal of a controlled hazardous substance.

Mecklem pleaded guilty to two counts of improperly handling solid waste and two counts of discharging a pollutant to waters of the State of Maryland. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 4, 2026, to allow him to pay the fine in advance.

The $100,000 in fines will be distributed between Maryland’s Clean Water Fund and Hazardous Substance Control Fund.

In a separate civil case announced in 2023 in the Circuit Court for Baltimore, the Maryland Department of the Environment brought a lawsuit against Skyline and TTI. That case remains pending, with a trial date of March 2.