A “structure crack[s] open” at a construction site on Interstate 70, and a Hagerstown man is saddled with a year of home detention and a $131,410 restitution. But it could have been worse; he could have gotten fifteen years in jail and been fined three-quarters of a million dollars.

The blame landed on Santos Rivas, the quality control director who okayed the “substandard concrete products” for use in construction at I-70 and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Capital Beltway. Rivas pleaded guilty to three counts of making false statements regarding the quality of the concrete.