Police: Two men stole $160,000 in scrap
Posted: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:30 pm | Updated: 9:25 pm, Tue Jan 17, 2012.
Police: Two men stole $160,000 in scrap By Bill Utterback
butterback@timesonline.com Timesonline.com | 4 comments
In a month long effort to steal and sell scrap material, two Beaver County men removed metal valued at more than $160,000 from a steel plant in West Mayfield, according to a Beaver Falls police report.
Richard Andrew Javens of Beaver Falls told police he and Frederic Lee Megill Jr. of Rochester worked five nights each week to take scrap metal from PTC Alliance Steel plant, 4400 W. Fourth Ave. They didn't work Friday or Saturday evenings because scrap metal yards aren't open on weekends.
PTC Alliance, on a site formerly occupied by Babcock & Wilcox steel, estimated its loss at $162,125.
Javens and McGill cut a lock from a gate and backed a truck up to a loading dock that is no longer used by the company, went inside a former B&W lab building and removed various metals between December and Jan. 5, according to police.
Police said employees reported the thefts after noticing footprints and tire tracks in the snow on Jan. 5.
Javens, 41, of 1220 Fourth Ave., and Megill, 26, of 764 Reno St., face five felony charges each: burglary, theft, receiving stolen property, criminal trespassing and criminal conspiracy, according to court documents.
Four days before they were charged with the PTC Alliance incidents, Javens and Megill were found removing steel bars from the former Envirotrol building at 31st Street and 24th Street Extension in Beaver Falls.
Police said the lock on a door had been broken and a "truckload" of white steel beams had been removed from the building. Both men were charged with theft and criminal trespassing, according to court documents