A local trucking company and its owner were sentenced Tuesday to probation and fined for falsifying driver logbooks.

Dean A. Landis, 45, of Willow Street, must serve 12 months of home detention as part of his five years of probation. He also was fined $15,000.

His firm, D.A. Landis Trucking Inc., was sentenced to four years of probation, fined $250,000 and ordered to implement a comprehensive compliance and ethics plan.

The penalties were imposed by U.S. District Judge James Knoll Gardner in Allentown.

Landis and his company had pleaded guilty in March to ordering their drivers to falsify their logbooks to hide that they were driving excessive hours in violation of federal regulations.

The extra hours were being worked in 2008 and 2009, prosecutors said, to haul condemned milk to a New Jersey cheese manufacturer, rather than dumping the milk as state law requires.

Milk processors had condemned the milk because it was tainted with antibiotics.

The cheese manufacturer bought the condemned milk for a fraction of the price that it would have paid for good milk, then used the product to make ricotta cheese, prosecutors said.

No illnesses were reported because of the contaminated product.

Landis Trucking had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of making false statements.

The Rohrerstown Road firm had faced a maximum fine of $5.5 million and five years of probation.

Landis had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. His other original charges, those same 10 counts of making false statements, were dropped.

He had faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

tmekeel@lnpnews.com