Stolen Coal

In yesterdays newspaper (Shamokin News Item) 3000 ton of coal mined on Reading Anthracite property. Apparantly another company went past their boundry line knowingly, and took the coal.

Here's the link to the story:

http://www.dailyitem.com/news/local_news/man-charged-with-st ... c1780.html

Over $69K worth of coal. No difference if they had broken into a bank and stole $69K.

Errr...that article said that he received stolen property......how do you 'receive' stolen property if you're the one nicking it?

unhippy wrote:Errr...that article said that he received stolen property......how do you 'receive' stolen property if you're the one nicking it?

Probably because he himself didn't physically remove the coal from the neighboring property by assigning some dupe to do it for him. He profited from the theft while not being the actual thief.

What I gather from the article is that he mined the coal from property that was not his. It was Reading’s coal because it was on their property. It would be like running you combine through your neighbor’s field and selling the grain as if it was yours. Because they tried to get the surveyor to move a property line shows they knew what they were doing, had it been an honest mistake I am sure they could have negotiated some sort of agreement or it would be settled in civil court.

This happens a lot in logging and in 1898 my Great-Great-Great Grandfather was murdered when he was going to take the guilty loggers to court for it. Here in Maine timber Theft is a huge issue and a huge fine; 3 times the value of the wood harvested. I certainly hope that holds true there with coal.

We all make mistakes, I know that, but I really dislike a thief.