One Man’s Trash – Another Man’s Treasure

It all sounds innocent enough, your friend calls you up and asks you if you want to make some extra money. It’s Saturday morning and that is just what the doctor ordered. He tells you that his friend’s grandfather has a bunch of junk on his farm that he wants removed. We can take it to the dump or we can take it to the scrap yard and keep all the money we make from cashing in the scrap metal. You are all in! So you meet up with your friend, drive to the farm, roll down the driveway, pull up to the barn and get to work.

Old tractor rakes, plows, metal buildings that have fallen down, old engines, engine parts, rolls of electrical wire…you get the picture. $745.00 in cash for one hard days work feels pretty good right? Here is the problem: There is no “Grandfather” just a guy that suckered his buddies into helping him take scrap metal off a property he had no right to be on. My client was charged with 12 counts of  grand larceny, obtaining money under false pretense and conspiracy to commit larceny.  I posted a $1500.00 bond for my client and you can best believe that the Prosecuting Attorney is not going to be buying the “I was just trying to help out my friend and make a little money” story. As a matter of fact it is quite possible that during the full day of loading “scrap” metal you might have sensed that something wasn’t quite right about the whole scene. Later,  when you are sitting in the back of a cop car, you would be sure of it.