Published: Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Tip leads to charges in aluminum theft
The aluminum billets would have been difficult to sell, a local dealer said.
By TIM YOVICH
NILES — Two men have been charged in the theft of 42,000 pounds of aluminum destined for delivery to a Girard aluminum extruding company.
Detective Daniel E. Adkins Jr. said the metal is worth about $50,000 on the scrap market.
Charged with felony theft is Donald Higgins, 45, of Baltimore, Md., who appeared in municipal court Tuesday. He was released after posting a $3,500 bond and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for 9:15 a.m. Friday, Sept. 8.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Lewis Moler, 103 West St., on a charge of receiving stolen property, a felony.
Adkins said charges are expected to be filed against other people as the case develops.
The 430 aluminum billets were found Monday by police loaded in a dump truck behind Moler's home, Adkins said.
They are about 7 inches in diameter, and some are 24 inches long and others 28 inches long.
Intended destination
The detective said that Higgins was supposed to deliver the billets from Baltimore to Indalex Corp. in Girard. Instead, he took the loaded tractor-trailer to Semi Service Express at Truck World in Hubbard to supposedly get the tractor repaired. He got another tractor and hauled the load to behind the West Street house.
A concerned citizen called police, Adkins said, after seeing the metal being transferred to a 1988 dump truck.
With the help of Chris Becker and Chuck Morrow, assistant county prosecutors, Adkins obtained a search warrant from the property from Niles municipal Judge Thomas W. Townley.
Steve Vivo, president of Vivo Metal Trading Co. in Austintown, said the billets would have been difficult to sell unless they had a prearranged buyer.
"It would be hard to sell something like that," Vivo said Tuesday. "We wouldn't buy anything like that."
Vivo pays between 40 cents and 60 cents per pound for scrap aluminum.
When Adkins was asked what the men were going to do with the billets, he replied: "That's the 64 thousand-dollar question."
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