Posted on 09/07/2009 4:18:42 AM PDT by raybbr
NEW HAVEN — A couple who had their electric service under the name and Social Security number of the woman’s deceased infant have been charged with stealing more than $4,000 in electricity over about four years, police said.
Felipe Cordero, 62, and the woman believed to be his wife, Lillian Cordero, 44, face numerous charges and were released on a promise to appear in court, although the date was not available.
Felipe Cordero is charged with third-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit third-degree larceny. Lillian Cordero, in addition to those charges, is charged with falsely reporting an incident and third-degree identity theft.
Police said the two had many aliases, the surname Soto among them.
Lillian Cordero is charged with identity theft, police said, because she admitted to United Illuminating investigators that the electrical service at the Cordero home, 44 Palmieri Ave., was in the name of a daughter who was born Dec. 18, 1997, and died June 14, 1998. Police did not identify the baby.
Police also could not verify whether the Corderos are a couple or have some other relationship, but UI officials said they identified themselves as husband and wife. It also is not known whether Felipe Cordero was the baby’s father.
The alleged theft of electricity occurred between September 2004 and the end of December 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at nhregister.com ...
“Pathway to citizenship” people?
Oh, yeah, I'm sure they'll show up in court.
Isn't Soto like Smith in English?
Drilling a hole to block the indicator? I never thought of that. In my last home, it would have been relatively easy to drill a hole into the feed wires into the meter from the inside (the wires enter the meter from above and are secured to the side of the house) and insert a screw to use as a tap to take off power. All you have to do is use the tap to power a few circuits, say refrigerator, freezer and laundry, to save a lot of dough and still have a plausible electric bill.
I’m a little squeamish about handling energized 120 circuits, but we have enough power outages that you could do the hot work during an outage. 120 VAC isn’t all that dangerous if you’re careful.
Don’t try this at home, kids.
Having been an idustrial electrician for thirty years you learn how to do it. Unless you're willing to drill a fairly large hole and insert at least an 8 gauge wire to that bolt to get 50A you are not going to get a lot of advantage. Eight gauge wire is pretty stiff and big. This is not something that would be easy.
So where did they go after being released on bail; to Taco Bell for one of those border meals.
I was thinking just letting the screw act as a wire, something like a #10 3/4” wood screw. I’d tap off the head of the screws inside the house. I would worry about heat build up at that junction, especially if corrosion occured. You’d have to seal it with caulking from the inside real good.
I agree it’s a hair brained idea, but you could probably get away with it for a while.
I did add a couple of branch circuits to the house for an addition and garage. It would have been interesting trying to explain to the electrical inspector why I had an extra fuse box coming in from the meter, or to an alert home inspector when I sold it.
After I thought about it your idea would be extremely dangerous. What you would do by drilling into the main conductor is reduce its current capacity. Depending on the size of the hole you might cause the wire to burn open under a relatively low load.
A better idea would be to scrape/trim a section off of the insulation and bolt a tap onto it. You could wire to the tap (they do make them) and use that. Trying to take too much off one phase of your 208 could cause an imbalance coming in.
Lots of things to think about when it comes to electricity.
I did specify that it was a hare brained idea.
The alleged theft of electricity occurred between September 2004 and the end of December 2008.
I have a little different take on this article.
4 years?
Sorry.if the Electric provider was stupid enough to provide someone with electricty for 4 years without getting paid then they deserve to have been stiffed for being so stupid.
$4G? If they are using ‘G’ to mean grand, a grand is $1,000. The dollar sign isn’t needed. Should have said $4k. Or did they mean 4 Gigadollars? That’s the deficit Emperor obie is shooting for.
Yes, I’m being fussy this morning.
If you read the article, it’s clear that they occassionally removed the pin so that there would always be some recorded consumption. When they replaced the mechanical meter with an electronic one, the power company simply extrapolated their usage backwards four years, to determine about how much electricity they stole.
I think the power company should be able to recover a large multiple of the probable amount to discourage this kind of behavior.
He was an electrician and before all the furniture was in, he was down in the basement re-wiring his apartment to the Buildings Electrical Meter. He was a 'pro' so it all looked copacetic.And since the lights in the halls and basement burned basically 24/7, plus the power used by tenants washing machines in the basement, the Building owner never noticed the slight spike in usage or costs.
After a few years they finally got evicted, but for non payment of rent. It was only when the new tenant moved in that ComEd caught the re-wiring.
(STOO-PID™ meter reader never noticed that the wheel wasn't moving or dials hadn't changed.)
The leftists have created a entitlement mentality, so they are to blame for this. No doubt the taxpayers will be paying the bill.
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