From the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore:
Ronald Phillips Baker, Sr., age 62, of Havre de Grace, Maryland and Steven M. Coale, age 34, of North East, Maryland pleaded guilty today to stealing aluminum and copper in separate incidents from Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG).
The guilty pleas were announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Robert Craig of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service – Mid-Atlantic Field Office;the Directorate of Emergency Services, U.S. Army Garrison, Aberdeen Proving Ground; and Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
According to Baker’s plea agreement, Baker worked at APG as the captain for a patrol boat on the upper Chesapeake Bay. He had a security clearance that authorized him to enter into secured areas at APG. From September 13, 2010to April 22, 2012, Baker stole 27,496 pounds of aluminum and other metals from an APG building. Typically, Baker would steal the aluminum after dark, if no vehicles were nearby. Baker sold the stolen metal for $14,316.70 to recyclers at scrap value for personal gain. Baker only stopped stealing aluminum from the building after steel plates were placed over the aluminum which prevented access.
On April 23, 2012, Baker stole approximately 2,740 pounds of fabricated aluminum outriggers, stored on pallets near another APG building. These outriggers were actively used to test Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles for the U.S. military. Baker took the stolen outriggers to his house and sold them the next day to metal recyclers at scrap value for $1,510. The government places the value of the fabricated outriggers at $112,500. The outriggers were recovered from a local scrap dealer.
As part of his plea agreement, Baker has agreed to pay $25,732.38 in restitution.
In a separate scheme, according to his plea agreement, Coale worked closely with co-defendants Timothy Bittner and Robert Reynolds as electricians at APG’s Department of Public Works. From March through November 2011, Coale, Bittner and Reynolds used their expertise as electricians to steal copper wire from government buildings and locations in the Edgewood area of APG for resale to metal recyclers for their personal gain.
Coale falsely reported his work time to disguise the fact that he was stealing copper wire while on duty. Coale, Bittner and Reynolds took the stolen copper wire to their government vehicles in the APG parking lot,and transferred the wire to their personal cars. They moved the stolen wire to their residences where they stripped the plastic coating off the wire by hand, which increased its market value. They sold the copper to metal recyclers.
In June 2011, Coale, Bittner and Reynolds realized that a significant amount of copper wire was located in the ground under Eagle Point. For two days and while on duty, the conspirators tied the exposed portion ofthe wire to their government vehicles, which they used to pull the wire out of the ground. Because the stolen wire weighed approximately five tons, the conspirators rented storage space in Edgewood to store the stolen wire, and bought a stripping machine to remove the insulation from the copper wire at a much faster pace than by hand. Coale and his conspirators sold the copper to metal recyclers in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware as scrap, and divided the proceeds among the three of them.
On August 11, 2011 Coale text messaged Reynolds that he was reluctant to participate with Bittner and Reynolds in further copper thefts, although he did allow Bittner and Reynolds to use his personal truck to transports copper wire from the storage facility to recycling facilities. Although Coale did not help Bittner and Reynolds steal copper wire from APG after August 12, 2011, Coale was responsible for the theft of approximately 126 pounds of aluminum wire which he sold for scrap to a Maryland recycler on October 29, 2011.
As part of his plea agreement, Coale has agreed to forfeit between $33,988 and $87,038.
Baker faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for theft of government property and Coale faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiring to steal government property. U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. scheduled Baker’s sentencing for December 12, 2012, and Coale’s sentencing for December 15, 2012, both at 9:30 a.m.
Timothy J. Bittner, age 52, of Bel Air, Maryland and Robert W. Reynolds, age 30, of Felton, Pennsylvania, previously pleaded guilty to their role in the theft of copper wire and are scheduled to be sentenced on October 30 and 23, 2012, respectively.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the DCIS, APG’s Directorate of Emergency Services and FBI for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Joyce K. McDonald, Special Assistant United States Attorney David I. Sharfstein, of the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Marlaire, who are prosecuting the cases.
I can’t imagine the mind of some scum federal employee that would take what taxpayers paid for ($112,500) and got less than $2000 for it but didn’t care. Somebody needs to audit APG because I’m bettin’ there’s more. These details are very damning.
The $112,500 value would be labor AND materials at government rates while the $2000is teh scrap material value. Think how much your $20000 to $40000 car is worth as scrap material (not parts).
Thiefs are still scum (fed or not).
That I understand..and it doesn’t matter it still cost the taxpayers $112K and these scumbags cared so little for our investment they scraped it for less than 2% of it’s cost.
The more typical and accepted ‘theft’ of money and resources at the government level is by way of misrepresented hour worked. I’m sure that would add up to a pretty penny if someone could track it all.
It appears that the only obvious and valuable effort comes from you, huh? Must be nice to be the only worthy person in a society of 300 million.
not 300 million just a few 100 feds…
It would be interesting to find out if during the week where the group of electricians spent 2 entire days digging up copper any of them put in for overtime because they couldn’t get the real work done. I bet they did and I bet nobody questioned it at all.
If you are familiar with Edgewood, there are lots of isolated places out there. Very easy to go unnoticed.
What are you auditing and what office in APG particularly? Is this a blanket operation? Seems pretty simple or…oversimplified.
If you think their theft was bad, take a look at the list of lawyers who profited from this case. The litigation costs from their trial was probably way more then what they stole.
You should change your handle to “cptn obnoxious” instead. What a prick you are!!. I see the total disdain you have for thieves, as I do, but to put a the stain of dishonor that these guys brought to themselves and apply it to all federal employees is quite revealing about your biases towards govt in general. Also, it is not quite clear that these employees were federal or Army employees as they could also be employed by one of many contractors at the base. Either way they deserve to be brought to justice (govt service) and put in jail (govt service).
Did I strike too close to home for you?
I am pro-government but not pro-slackers.
Open the ranks to a little competition and see what happens.
People might actually try to earn the pay instead of expect it.
Just for clarity, Army, or any of the services civilian employees, are Federal employees. One in the same.
Majority of the trade (electricians, plumbers, etc.) are civilians. However, with the new BRAC construction, and many 1000’s of square feet recently added at the C4ISR campus, the Garrison has been supplementing their workforce with contract/non-Government support. The Garrison’s budget to hire civilians was simply not increased enough to hire sufficient additional staff to handle the new infrastructure. Hence the need for contract supplement
Note that at Fort Monmouth, the entire skilled craftsman workforce had been contracted out in the early 1980’s via the A-76 competitive sourcing process. Frankly I’m surprised the same did not happen at APG.
What your make you say that? I am not a govt worker. I think that you suffer from some type of thought blocking, delusions of grandeur or just plain paranoia. It is not clear from your posts that you could ever be pro-government as you profess. Who is pro-slackers? What on Earth and Heaven are you talking about? Are you 14 years old? Who is trying not to “earn their pay” Do you just make stupid pronouncements and expect them to be facts? You are allowed to have your delusions, but not to much more than that. Good Night!
I’ll leave you to your semi-incoherent, projectionist paranoia, quickly judgemental post. If indeed you are not a government employee or interacting with them on a daily basis over the course of years then, you have no basis upon which to assume delusional or otherwise non-factual information.
Yes, I actually do believe the government serves a vital role providing services and redirecting money to things that would otherwise go unfunded.
and yes I believe and know that too often people are milking the system to the ultimate detriment of the people it should be helping.
Good Day.
“the pot calling the kettle black?”
Another day, another employer robbed.
Happens everywhere.