Saugus man arrested for metal theft

SAUGUS – Authorities on Thursday charged a Saugus man who is also a district manager of the Department of Recreation and Conservation and another DCR employee with stealing $500,000 of metal from the Longfellow Bridge and selling the material to an Everett scrap dealer for $12,000.Richard Stewart, 42, of 70 Water St., Saugus, who is the DCR Middlesex Fells District Manager and DCR employee Joseph Falzone, 43, of Nashua, N.H., were arraigned Thursday on 12 counts each of receiving stolen goods and conspiracy.DCR employees alerted law enforcement Sept. 4 that over 2,300 feet of fascia coping was missing from a DCR storage facility in Stoneham. The metal, which weighed 100,000 pounds, was removed from Boston’s Longfellow Bridge last year for construction and stored with the intention of being placed back on the bridge in 2012 once repairs are completed.The coping, which was used for decorative purposes on the historical bridge, will cost between $500,000 and $700,000 to replace, according to the DCR.”We allege that these employees abused their access to taxpayer property and equipment to steal this valuable material and sell it for their own personal gain,” Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone said. “It is a violation of public trust made all the more outrageous when you consider they stole more than $500,000 worth of historic, public property to make $12,000 for themselves.”Leone says State Police conducted numerous interviews and examined surveillance videos in its investigation. State Police even used its Crime Scene Services unit to examine tire prints in the Stoneham yard to link Stewart and Falzone to the thefts.Police say a DCR dump truck, normally used at a Cambridge facility, was observed in the Stoneham facility and Everett scrap yard on multiple weekends in July and August.”Video surveillance captures the DCR truck entering the (Everett) scrap metal yard on numerous occasions with the coping in the truck and then leaving the yard minutes later empty,” Leone stated in a press release.Approximately 3,467 linear feet of coping was removed from the bridge and sectioned off in seven-foot pieces weighing 350 pounds each. Authorities alleged nearly two-thirds of that was stolen.Wendy Fox, spokeswoman for DCR, said the two employees have been suspended indefinitely.DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan said in a statement he is disgusted by the allegations.”The theft of historic property held in trust for the public by DCR is an outrageous breach of confidence the people of Massachusetts place in this agency,” Sullivan said. “DCR will not tolerate any actions that compromise our reputation, integrity, or the trust of the people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”Ed Murray, chairman of the Friends of Breakheart Reservation, a group focused on the large DCR-maintained park in Saugus, said he knows the suspects and the whole incident saddened him.”I’m sorry this occurred. I have total faith in the Breakheart, DCR staff,” Murray said. “They’re good folks that would never be involved in anything like this.”A woman who identified herself as Stewart’s mother-in-law said Stewart had no comment when an Item reporter visited his home Thursday afternoon. Stewart did not return a phone call for comment.