POLICE REPORTS: Criminal Complaints

The following are police criminal complaints filed at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Lawrence County office of Honorable Jerry G. Cartwright.

Repeated Car Theft

On June 28 at 1:17 AM ECPD responed to the area of Park Ave. and Seventh Street after a reporting party observed two males (one in white and the other in red) getting into a parked vehicle and grabbing items out of the car. When police arrived at the scene, they noted there were items laying outside the driver side door. They conducted a search for the two men, but when no contact was made, they returned to the car and attempted to make contact with the owner of the car. Again with negative contact, the items were bagged and placed onto a property on Park Avenue.

Police returned to their vehicles and began observing the street, they saw a white male who was wearing a red shirt walking North across Park Avenue. When the man observed the car, he began to run between yards on Park Avenue. After ignoring police when they told him to stop, they eventually caught up to physically take the male into custody. The man was then identified as Andrew Rayner, 26 of Ellwood City, and escorted to the police car still parked on Park Avenue.

Upon returning to the Ellwood City Police Department, Rayner was searched and was found to be in the possession of the following stolen items:

A total of $69.75 in money, 2 knives, a Zippo Lighter, a pack of Marlboro Lights, three Don Lewis key chains, and a digital weight scale with multiple lighters.

While police were removing the items from Rayners person, he kept making comments that these were all stolen items from the cars.

After further investigation as well as interviewing victims of theft, Rayner was charged on 5 counts of Theft from a Motor Vehicle, 5 counts of receiving stolen property, and criminal mischief.

7/11 Money Theft

From June 8th to June 9th William Brown, 24 of Rochester, was observed to make multiple transactions to prepaid/pre-loadable money gift cards and fail to reimburse the 7/11 he worked at. In total, $1,680 was stolen from the Ellwood location. The store manager called Ellwood Police on June 10th to report the fraud, and when police got there they informed them that Brown was working that day and that they wanted to confront and terminate him the same day. They stated that if he complied and admitted to the crimes, no charges would be pressed and they would give him until the end of June to reimburse the store. When Brown arrived to work that day at 2:00 p.m., he admitted to the crimes when asked and was provided until the end of June to pay it back.

However on July 11th, police recieved a call saying that Brown hasnt made contact with 7/11 since the day of his termination and charges were to be pressed. As a result, Ellwood City Police will be charging William Brown with theft, receiving stolen property, and retail theft of the first offense.