Ohio Senate Bill 193 (2012) the state's scrap metal law created a statewide Do Not Buy List and introduced new regulations on scrap yards in an effort to help law enforcement crack down on illegal scrapping. Some courts and police departments are unprepared to utilize the database that is mandatory for scrap dealers.
Who does the law affect?
- Individuals can be placed on the Do Not Buy List for three years for misdemeanor theft convictions and six years for felony theft convictions, or by law enforcement officer initiative (the status can be appealed).
Some of the 30 theft convictions include
- robbery
- aggravated burglary
- passing bad checks
- workers’ compensation fraud
- receiving stolen property
- Medicaid fraud
- theft in office
- unauthorized use of a vehicle
- personating an officer
- forgery
- credit fraud
- telecommunications or computer fraud
Ohioans file the most insurance claims for metal theft in the nation, and that merely documents the properties that are insured.
A few of the many metal thefts that have occurred in Trumbull County in the last month:
- Jan. 7, Ajax Magnethermic Corporation was a target of scrap metal thieves.
- Jan. 25, snow tracks revealed vandals placed a ladder against the Gander Mountain building in Howland and removed copper coils, costing an estimated $11,000 in damage.
- Jan. 26, $45, 000 of damage was caused on High Street in Cortland when copper coils and HVAC units were removed from Dairy Queen, Action Therapy and H & R Block sometime in January.
- Jan. 27, a Newton Falls resident on Ophelia Street came home to find a water heater and copper pipe removed from his home.
- Feb. 6, a vacant home on Sheridan Avenue in Niles was stripped of copper.
By RENEE FOX
Tribune Chronicle
Although the last part of Ohio Senate Bill 193, the state’s 2012 scrap metal law, took effect at the beginning of February, most of the county’s municipalities with scrap metal dealers are not yet adding convicted thieves to the Do Not Buy List.
In an effort to make it more difficult for illegal scrappers to cash in on the blight-causing crime of metal theft, the names and a few other details of those with theft convictions in Ohio will be added to the Do Not Buy List by courts in the state that report to the Ohio Courts Network, and scrap dealers are required to thoroughly document and log every transaction to the Dealer Daily Transaction Database. Failure to comply could result in charges for scrap dealers.
“The prosecutors and police must be diligent in this matter,” Warren Councilman Eddie Colbert said. “I could leave my home in Warren tonight and come back to find all of the copper pipe gone.”
It will take a combined effort between the mayors, police chiefs, service directors and scrap yards to make the most of the law, Colbert said.
At the beginning of 2013, anyone accepting metals and some other items for money were required under threat of criminal conviction to register with the state for a first-time fee of $200; subsequent annual registration costs $150. In doing so, they created a CIMS (Contact and Information Management Systems) account on an interactive online portal that contains the Do Not Buy List.
It cost Jarred Mitchell, owner of Falls Recycling, approximately $12,000 to purchase software and equipment now required of scrap dealers in order to document, store and transmit every scrap transaction on a daily basis.
Mitchell said the new process, running the name of each seller through the database, capturing their image and the product’s image, takes an extra ten minutes per transaction, enough that he had to hire another person.
“The financial burden impedes business owners,” Mitchell said. “It is maybe 10 percent of scrap sellers that complicate the process for 90 percent of the others.”
At his scrap yard, Mitchell said, he has always complied with law enforcement requests and observed theft alerts, before the law required it.
“We currently have a number of scrap metal theft cases in the courts and under investigation right now,” Newton Falls Police Chief Gene Fixler said. “The good people at Falls Recycling have been instrumental in helping us, as they always have. We have every reason to believe they will be in full compliance with the law.”
The scope of the problem
Scrap theft has been an ongoing problem in communities around Trumbull County and Ohio. At the end of January, Cortland Dairy Queen owner Kurt Bush came in to turn on his freezers, preparing for a scheduled Feb. 6 open date. Instead, he discovered copper thieves had removed copper cooling wires and the air conditioning unit from behind the building. The business is now expected to open Saturday. The air conditioning units behind the two neighboring businesses -- H&R Block and Action Therapy -- were also removed. The estimated cost of damages is $45,000.
Cortland Police Chief Thomas Andrews said detectives are tracking down this particular thief or thieves by locating documents with the units’ serial numbers to check against the list kept by scrap yards.
“With this law, we have the chance to stop people that have realized there is a market for (illegal scrapping) and keep them from growing it,” Andrews said.
Thieves can cause thousands of dollars of damage to structures, making only a couple of dollars a pound. In already depressed areas of a city, vacant homes with already low property values are easy targets. Once a house is gutted, in many parts of town, the crime guarantees the house will never be legitimately occupied again.
The problem goes well beyond Trumbull County. Ohio had the highest occurrence of metal theft insurance claims in the nation between 2011 and 2013, according to a 2014 National Insurance Crime Bureau report. Ten percent of the 41,138 claims for copper, aluminum, brass and bronze theft in the nation were filed by Ohioans.
Using the new law against thieves
When someone is caught removing metals from vacant and occupied homes or businesses, police officers have a number of different charges to offer the prosecutor’s office. Sometimes there is only enough evidence to charge someone with criminal trespassing, possessing criminal tools or receiving stolen property.
“It is harder to charge someone with theft because of the burden of proof,” Fixler said.
As a part of the new law, those with misdemeanor theft convictions cannot sell scrap to Ohio scrap dealers for three years after the case was determined, and those with felony theft convictions cannot sell for six years.
Officers have the option, through a CIMS account, to add someone not submitted through the OCN to the Do Not Buy List. An officer might if the municipal court hasn’t submitted its convictions or a subject is a known, illegal scrapper without qualifying convictions. That addition can be appealed, according to Dustyn Fox of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Lt. Jeffrey Cole of the Warren City police said the department is currently working on a policy to incorporate the CIMS network, including the Do Not Buy List, into officer training.
“We have had a great working relationship with Metalico, anything we need, they provide it,” Cole said. “We are going to do all we can to cut down on illegal scrapping in Warren.
Cole said Det. Patrick Marsico, the department’s environmental officer is likely to lead the effort, he could not be reached in time for comment.
Officers in Warren do not yet have CIMS accounts, according to Cole. In Newton Falls, Fixler said because his department is a smaller and he is often involved in scrap metal theft cases, he is maintaining a department wide CIMS account to access training videos and documents provided by the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Ohio Division of the Department of Homeland Security; as is Niles Police Chief Rob Hinton.
The list is also searchable through the Law Enforcement Automated Data System and the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway.
Thomas Mayyou of Warren was caught red-handed driving away from the Niles Waste Water Treatment Plant with another man at 1 a.m. in 2013 with 30 to 50 feet of thick, insulated copper wire in his car. Officers charged Mayyou with misdemeanor receiving stolen property and possessing criminal tools. Mayyou pleaded no contest to the charge of receiving stolen property and was sentenced to 180 days in jail with 160 days suspended and a $200 fine. That misdemeanor conviction would put Mayyou on the Do Not Buy List until 2016. However, Niles Municipal Court has not yet begun submitting names to the list.
Getting caught up
Although mandatory reporting by scrap dealers was originally required to begin January, 2014, Fox said the law was delayed until February of this year to finalize the rules, enhance the database and allow scrap dealers and law enforcement time to practice using the interface. But many local communities are still behind.
Of the municipal courts in Warren, Niles and Newton Falls, only Newton Falls currently submits court data to the OCN, a division of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Warren’s chief deputy clerk, Deborah Alberini, said the company working on new computer software for the municipal court went bankrupt. But, Alberini said, a new company should have the city set to transmit names to the Do Not Buy List by the end of the year.
Niles is in the process of setting up the network, according to a municipal court employee; a timeline was not given.
Colbert said he would like to see tougher restrictions, allowing only those with licenses or permits to cash in copper, the metal most often taken according to the NICB.
