Two men who stole thousands of dollars worth of scrap metal from a Rock Island-area business will serve three months in jail.
The defendants, Thomas Richard Shearon, 37, and Kelly Francis Scott, 34, both entered guilty pleas before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley to the charge of felony theft. They were ordered to serve 90 days of two-year sentences, perform 32 hours public service work, and will have to make restitution.
Their charges come after sheriff’s investigators identified them as suspects in the disappearance of numerous steel pipes from outside TMF on Old Rock Island Road. During his pipe probe, sheriff’s investigator Kelly Carter said he checked around and found Shearon had drove Scott’s vehicle to American Iron and Metal in Manchester and sold steel pipe. When questioned, Scott reportedly claimed he did not know he was stealing.
“He stated someone had told him that the steel pipe was being given away to anyone who wanted to pick it up and that he and a friend went to a location off Highway 288 on several occasions,” Carter recalled of his conversation with Scott, noting the men would get the metal late at night, usually around midnight.
Carter learned the men had taken pipe on numerous occasions and sold it to scrap metal places in Coffee County. About $5,800 worth of pipe was found missing from TMF making the theft charge a felony.