Military-Vehicles: [MV] Fort McCoy trial results
[MV] Fort McCoy trial results
MVBOATNUT@aol.com
Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:15:20 -0400 (EDT)
3 more get prison in Fort McCoy thefts
By Kevin Murphy
Special to the Journal Sentinel
September 11, 1997
Madison -- Three of the men convicted of conspiring to steal 153 vehicles
from Fort McCoy in
the nation's largest heist of vehicles from a military base received prison
sentences Wednesday
and were ordered to pay $687,084 to the U.S. Army.
Dennis Lambert, 53, of Black River Falls, a former civilian employee at the
base in western
Wisconsin, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. Donald
Crandall, 38, of
Sparta, was sentenced to two years and three months, and Loyd Pilgrim, 37, of
Amery, received
three years and five months.
Anthony L. Piatz Jr., 37, of Hudson, accused of being the ringleader of the
thefts, was sentenced in
July to eight years in prison. He also was ordered Wednesday to make
restitution to the Army.
All four are jointly responsible to pay the restitution.
Grant Kruger, 44, of Maplewood, Minn., is to be sentenced next month before
U.S. District Judge
Barbara B. Crabb. Two other men were found not guilty at a June trial.
Although Crandall "was at the center of the conspiracy," Crabbed reduced his
sentence because
he had provided testimony at Piatz's trial in March and at a trial in June.
Crandall's testimony "was a big step in trying to repair the rip in the
social fabric" that unraveled
the trust between co-workers at the military training base, Crabb said.
Testimony at the 5 1/2-hour hour hearing Wednesday recounted how Piatz's
passion for surplus
military equipment led him to bribe Crandall and then Lambert into getting
access to vehicles
used on target ranges.
He was convicted in March of removing 22 missile launchers, 16 armored
personnel carriers,
and dozens of Jeeps and commercial vehicles to an abandoned missile base he
owned near
Roberts. He enlisted Pilgrim to help haul up to 30 truckloads of vehicles.
Kruger marketed the
vehicles nationwide, with collectors paying up to $30,000 each.
Before she could sentence the three defendants, Crabb had to determine the
value of the vehicles
and the restitution they would pay. She said there was no market value for
the vehicles because
the government prohibited public sale of the missile launchers and deemed
jeeps like the dozens
the men stoled as not roadworthy.
Defense attorneys argued that because the vehicles were destined for the
target range, they had
no other value than scrap.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Bach argued that the value of the government's
loss represented
the amount Piatz and his co-defendants received on the "thieves market."
Crabb set the government's loss in the theft at $1.54 million and, for
restitution, deducted the
value of the vehicles Piatz had returned to the base.
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