Huh, check this out.
Remember that story I posted about the 7,300 gallons of gas stolen in AZ?
Well, I just found this posted at the eom_Daleel groups board:
http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2003/01/13/daily56.html?t=printable January 16, 2003
Malden man sentenced in stolen-gas case
Boston Business Journal
A Malden gas station owner was sentenced Wednesday to six months of home detention with electronic monitoring after pleading guilty to receiving 20,000 gallons of gasoline stolen from the Gulf Oil tank farm in Chelsea.
Malden resident Mihran Zeitounian, 49, owner of World Gas, 875 Main St., in Malden was also ordered to pay $23,800 in restitution and a $2,000 fine by U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole and sentenced to three years probation.
Three other defendants in the case have already pleaded guilty to stealing the gasoline, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan's office. Frank Romano, an employee of the Gulf facility, and Miguel Carlo, a driver for one of the independent companies that transported gas from the site, both reportedly pled guilty to stealing 10,000 gallons of gas by tapping into a pipeline in a remote part of the facility and filling a tanker truck with fuel. Carlo then allegedly delivered the stolen gas to World Gas that morning, on May 7, 2001, where Zeitounian paid him $8,000 in cash.
The price of 80 cents per gallon represented a 50 percent discount off the price Gulf was charging retail stations at that time.
A second theft containing another 10,000 gallons reportedly occurred on May 21, 2001, and involved Roman, Carlo and Michael Richards, another defendant who plead guilty to the theft charges. Gulf management reportedly caught this theft on videotape. This second load of stolen gasoline was also delivered to Zeitounian's gas station in exchange for $8,000 in cash.
Carlo, 33, of Randolph, and Richards, 36, of Tewksbury, each pleaded guilty in November 2001, to two counts of stealing gasoline from interstate shipments of fuel. Carlo and Richards are both scheduled to be sentenced by Judge O'Toole on Feb. 5. Romano, 54, of Weymouth, pleaded guilty in July 2002 for his role in the scheme and was sentenced by Judge O'Toole to two years probation, the first six months of which were to be served in community confinement.
The case was investigated by the FBI and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy in Sullivan's Economic Crimes Unit.
re post no. 9909..
Thanks for sharing that Calpernia.
Apparently, gas theft is not all that
uncommon, but in times like these...