Mr. Nofziger said today that he was "innocent of any deliberate violation of the law."

Deliberate violations of the law, Westport said, render MP3.com's insurance policy null.

The company, Mr. Udell said, "has been prosecuted for deliberate violations of the law which it has admitted to in court papers but not to the newspapers."

He even said he would have opposed Ms. Baird's confirmation had she not taken full responsibility, admitted to a deliberate violation of the law, and promised to work to regain public trust.

The department's Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration assessed the company's Electric Boat Division $5,000 for each of 121 instances in which it said injuries or illness went unrecorded or misrecorded in deliberate violation of the law.