Barry Castleman opens his 2017 paper Criminality and Asbestos in Industry with a quote from Sin and Society, Edward Ross’ 1907 classic.
“The grading of sinners according to badness of character goes on the assumption that the wickedest man is the most dangerous. This would be true if men were abreast in their opportunities to do harm. But the fact is that the patent ruffian is confined to the social basement. He can assault or molest, to be sure, but he cannot betray. Nobody depends on him so he cannot commit breach of trust, that arch sin of our time. He does not hold in his hand the safety or welfare of the public. He is the clinker, not the live coal – vermin, not beast of prey. Today the villain most in need of curbing is the respectable, exemplary, trusted personage, who, strategically placed at the focus of a spider-web of fiduciary relations, is able from his office chair to pick a thousand pockets, poison a thousand sick, pollute a thousand minds, or imperil a thousand lives.”
Castleman then lays out his own five part formula for prevention – information, regulation, compensation, humiliation, and incarceration.
Barry Castleman is one of the world’s leading experts on asbestos disease and is the author of Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, Fifth Edition (Aspen Publishers, 2005).
“Today, the asbestos industry is a criminal industry, profiting only by minimizing its costs for the prevention and compensation of occupational and environmental illness,” Castleman writes. “The asbestos industry should only be consulted by governments for the purpose of closing it and dealing with the legacy of in-place asbestos.”
Worldwide, corporate criminal prosecutions of executives for causing the deaths of workers and consumers are few and far between. In recent years, Castleman has been laser focused on the Italian prosecution of Stephan Schmidheiny, owner and CEO of the Swiss asbestos company Eternit.
In 2012, Schmidheiny was convicted in Italy of causing an environmental disaster that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Italians in the area of the town of Casale Monferrato, a conviction that was later thrown out on appeal after the defense made the argument that the prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations.
How many people have been killed by asbestos?
“We estimate maybe 40,000 a year in the United States. So that would be hundreds of thousands of people, maybe a million or two,” Castleman told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week.
What about worldwide?
“The estimates are now running around 300,000 a year.”
How many criminal prosecutions have been brought against asbestos manufacturers?
“Practically none.”
“Millions of people around the world have died from this, from an exposure that the industry understood could kill and they understood it more than 100 years ago. And there has been practically no criminal prosecutions, except in Italy.”
“They went after the Italian managers of the Eternit company. And they finally went after the top dog, the owner and CEO in Switzerland. He’s a multi-billionaire.”
Was there a criminal prosecution against the company?
“No, but criminal prosecutions against companies are kind of amorphous. You can only get a fine. Nobody goes to jail.”
In Italy the company was not criminally prosecuted. Instead they prosecute the top dog as you call him, Stephan Schmidheiny.
Schmidheiny’s firm, Eternit, made asbestos-cement building products in many countries.
“Schmidheiny was initially charged with creating an environmental disaster,” Castleman said. “He was interviewed in 2002 by the Wall Street Journal and he said – ‘I will never go to an Italian jail.’”
Actually, I just looked it up for the full quote. He told the Journal in 2002 – “I promise you, I will never go to an Italian prison. Once in a while, I have to look myself in the mirror. I can very well look this guy in the eyes and feel good about what I have done. Of course, nobody is perfect, and from hindsight, you always know more and you should have done more.”
“The case actually went forward in 2009,” Castleman said. “I testified in the case about how the big asbestos companies were sharing documents with each other. Those documents came out in U.S. litigation.”
“In 2012, a three judge panel convicted Stephan Schmidheiny of creating an environmental disaster. There was also a Baron from Belgium who was prosecuted, but he died a few weeks before the court rendered its verdict. So, Schmidheiny was the only one convicted. He was sentenced to 16 years in jail for creating an environmental disaster.”
“Unionists from all over Europe came to the court to hear the verdict. They were wearing their union jackets. There were Eternit companies in many of these European countries. Three auditoriums were filled with people who wanted to witness the verdict being handed down. We had simultaneous translation into English and French.”
“The verdict went on appeal the following year – 2013. The appeals court added some additional deaths from Naples and they raised the sentence to 18 years.”
“Then the case went to the Court of Cassation – which is the highest appellate court. That was an appeal based on just the law, not the facts. The Court of Cassation heard the case. The legendary prosecutor – Raffaele Guarniniello – who brought this case, was not the one who took the case on its final appeal. The appeal was handled by some political appointee from the Ministry of Justice. He walked into the court and said – we ask for the case to be dismissed on the grounds of statute of limitations.”
“That would be like the Justice Department winning a criminal case in the district court and a U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington and then saying – never mind, we want this conviction to be thrown out. And the statute of limitations issue had been raised in the lower courts and dismissed out of hand. It’s not as if this issue was being brought up for the first time.”
“The Court of Cassation threw out the case. Six months before the Court of Cassation heard the appeal, the prosecutor, Raffaele Guarniniello, suspecting this might happen, filed murder charges against Schmidheiny. There’s no statute of limitation for murder, but there is for manslaughter.”
“Schmidheiny was represented by the best lawyers money can buy. He was reputed to have been spending millions of dollars a year on lawyers. The cases were batted around in different courts in Italy. And in the end, it was decided that there would be four separate trials of Schmidheiny on these manslaughter charges.”
“Schmidheiny was tried for manslaughter in three courts. And in all three trials, he was convicted of manslaughter – in 2018, 2022 and 2023. The big case was in 2023, which involved a large number of deaths in Casale Monferrato.”
The reason there were three separate trials?
“They were broken down by different regions of the country. He was convicted three times by three different courts. And now three courts of appeal have upheld those verdicts.”
What were the sentences in each case?
“Only a year or two in the first two. They started out with two deaths in Turin. Then it was reduced to one. They started out with eight in Naples and that was reduced to one.”
“Then the big case was in 2023. There were 392 deaths from mesothelioma in the Casale area. He was sentenced to twelve years in jail. And now the appeals court just ruled. It issued a judgment. But then it issued something called a motivation. This was an explanation on what the judgment was based on. The motivation was just issued and runs about 600 pages.”
Where is Schmidheiny now?
“He never appeared in Italy. Only his lawyers appear in court.”
What happens now?
“The final appeal goes to the Court of Cassation. That court has been playing some funny games with statutes of limitations in other cases. But these cases have achieved a great deal of media interest in Italy. People are following this. People want to know what’s going to happen. This is a matter of public concern.”
When is the Court of Cassation going to hear the case?
“I would say within the next year or so. It might take another year. Under Italian law, while these cases are delayed, the statute of limitations clock keeps running. Unbelievable.”
How long has this been going on now?
“The trial court convictions go back to 2018.”
Where is Schmidheiny now?
“Probably in Switzerland.”
How much is he worth?
“Billions.”
How would you explain the lack of criminal manslaughter prosecutions? In the United States you have Ford Motor Company, BP, PG&E. But few others. But why so few?
“The first release of documents from the asbestos litigation, which the journalists referred to as ‘the Pentagon Papers of the asbestos industry,” was in 1978. Then Congressman George Miller (D-California) put forth legislation that would subject corporate executives to criminal prosecution if they were involved with suppressing information from the public that lead to serious illness or death. I testified at Congressional hearings in 1979. He told me he never saw anything like the corporate opposition to this bill. It was going nowhere. The corporate powers were absolutely determined not to allow the United States to establish personal responsibility for these business decisions which endangered so many people’s lives.”
“The hearing was held by John Conyers.”
By the way, I searched for the term “Pentagon Papers of the asbestos industry and a 1978 Washington Post article came up titled – New Data on Asbestos Indicate Cover-Up of Effects on Workers.
And here is the quote from the article: “These files are going to be the Pentagon Papers of the asbestos industry,” said Barry Castleman, a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund and to attorneys who have been distributing the material through legal circles.”
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Barry Castleman, see 39 Corporate Crime Reporter 42(12), November 2, 2025, print edition only.]