RSSScrap dealer gets home detention for fencing metal
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YAKIMA — A Wapato scrap dealer accused of fencing stolen metal was sentenced Friday to 90 days of home detention.
William Robert Ames, 65, was also fined $2,500 by Yakima County Superior Court Judge Mike McCarthy, who denied a motion by Ames’ attorney, Doug Garrison, seeking a new trial.
A jury last month convicted Ames, who started Mid-Valley Recycling in 2005, of second-degree attempted trafficking in stolen property and failing to maintain a logbook.
The panel rejected a more serious felony charge of first-degree attempted trafficking. Second-degree attempted trafficking is a gross misdemeanor.
The charges stemmed from an undercover sting in September 2006. Police said Ames bought suspicious-looking scrap metal, including road signs.
At trial, Ames argued it’s not illegal to have road signs and that the signs were kept in a standard storage area until detectives returned to search the business two days later.
But prosecutors said Ames knew what he was doing. Judge McCarthy agreed, accusing Ames of “fast and loose” bookkeeping.
“I think it’s clear you turned a blind eye to what was obvious to everybody else,” he told Ames.
One of Ames’ employees, Lisa R. Smith, was also charged in the case. Smith, 40, has since pleaded guilty to the logbook charge and was sentenced to six days in jail.
Ames was one of two recyclers in the area accused of helping underwrite a wave of scrap metal thefts that plague the region. Authorities maintain the thefts are driven by drug addicts.
The other dealer, Grandview recycler Dave Nagle, was charged with fencing stolen copper wire in March 2007. He later reached an agreement with prosecutors dismissing the case in October 2009 if he stays out of trouble.
Metal theft has been a problem for years throughout the region, thanks in large part to the price of copper, which has hovered at times at or even slightly above $4 a pound.
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