This guy ought to be taken out back and shot...

...figuratively of course.

Asbestos boss likely to breathe free

Houston businessman Eric Ho bought the defunct Alief General Hospital in 1997 with the intention of converting it to housing. He was informed by the seller that it required as much as $400,000 worth of asbestos abatement.

After receiving a bid for $325,000 from a licensed asbestos removal firm, he instead put his handyman in charge, who hired 10 or 11 Mexican farm workers to do the job.

They were given neither training nor proper protective clothing. They were not told that the material they were scraping off of pipes and beams with putty knives included asbestos.

And when a city inspector shut the project down, Ho instructed the workers to continue at night so as not to be detected. Some of the workers lived at the job site. Others ate among the dust they created with their putty knives.