Trucking Company Magnate Sentenced For Fatal Explosion, COVID Fraud

NEWPORT BEACH, CA — A trucking company magnate in Newport Beach was sentenced for ordering illegal repairs that killed an employee, tax evasion and fraudulently using COVID-19 pandemic relief while out on bail, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Carl Bradley Johansson, 64 of Newport Beach, was sentenced to ten years in federal prison Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was also ordered to pay $1,252,979 in restitution to two banks and the IRS, prosecutors said.

The fatal explosion happened through Johansson's Corona-based company, National Distribution Services Inc., which was in operation from 2009 through 2015. That company suffered two welding explosions in 2012 and 2014, prosecutors said.

Johansson created a second corporation under a different name, Wholesale Distribution Inc., so that he could keep operating cargo tanks.

Prosecutors said that Wholesale Distribution Inc. lacked certification to do in-house welding repairs on its cargo tanks. Despite this, he and co-defendant Enrique Garcia, a 46-year-old Pomona man who served as Johansson's shop manager, assigned two welders to repair a cargo tank on May 5, 2014.

The tank they worked on had not been cleared of fumes and crude oil, according to a previous Patch report. Because of that, the tank exploded the next day, killing one of the company's workers. Another worker was seriously injured.

Johansson has already served a 15-month federal prison sentence after a welder who worked for him died in a tanker explosion in 1993, according to prosecutors.

Johansson also admitted that from May 2014 through April 2018 he conspired to foil a federal investigation into the May 6, 2014, explosion by lying about the illegal welding repairs.

According to the Department of Justice, Johansson identified himself to federal investigators as a customer service representative with another company and said the welders were hired by an outside tank-repair company.

Prosecutors said Johansson did not file income tax returns between 2012 and 2017 as a part of his conspiracy to cover his control over his businesses.

He failed to report roughly $1,174,173 in income from the trucking companies, prosecutors said. He apparently used that money to rent a large home in Corona for $12,000 per month and used company accounts to make $200,000 in tuition payments at his children's private high schools and universities, prosecutors said.

In April 2020, while free on bond in the explosion case, Johansson directed another trucking company he controlled, the Ontario-based Western Distribution, to apply for a $436,390 PPP loan.

After the loan was funded, Johansson directed Western Distribution in May and June of 2020 to immediately spend the PPP funds. Rather than use the funds to keep the company's employees on staff, Johansson laid off most of the workers, but rehired many of them later that year.

At the sentencing hearing, the judge also sentenced NDSI and WDI to one year of probation.
Enrique Garcia, 48, of Pomona, Johansson's shop manager and co- defendant, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of welding without required certifications and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.

Donald Cameron Spicer, 71, of Fullerton, Johansson's safety manager and co-defendant, pleaded guilty to conspiring to make illegal repairs on the cargo tanks and to defraud the DOT. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 6.

READ MORE: Newport Trucking Magnate Guilty Of PPE Fraud, Explosion Cover-Up

City News Service, Patch Staffer Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.