GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The theft of nearly 2,600 pounds of brass and aluminum components from a Kent County business has a former employee facing a felony charge of embezzlement.
Investigators say 30-year-old Bryan Christopher Daley carted off the components and sold them to a scrap metal dealer in Grand Rapids. He was on probation at the time.
The thefts happened at Hilco Technologies in Gaines Township, where Daley worked as a material handler, court records show.
Investigators say he took 2,590 pounds of brass and aluminum and scrapped them at a Grand Rapids business for cash.
Between Oct. 2019 and March of 2020, he scrapped metal on 11 separate occasions, court records show. The total value of the metal components was more than $55,200.
The Grand Rapids scrap metal business had surveillance images of Daley on separate dates turning in the stolen metal, court records show.
A Hilco vice president confirmed for investigators that all of the metal was stolen from his company.
During an interview with a Kent County Sheriff's Department detective, Daley
"admitted to the theft and scrapping of these metal components,’’ court records show.
Daley, who lists a Wyoming address, was charged with embezzlement of $50,000 or more but less than $100,000. The felony is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Daley was interviewed by detectives in March of 2020. He was listed as a probation absconder a month later. He was on probation for illegal use/sale of a financial transaction device in Kent County. Daley has convictions for similar financial crimes in 2011.
He was booked into the Kent County Jail in late December for probation violation. Daley appeared in 63rd District Court on the embezzlement charge earlier this month.
The felony case was recently moved to Kent County Circuit Court. Bond on the embezzlement charge was set at $10,000 – 10%.
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