Thread: Area grave robber gets 16 months

Area grave robber gets 16 months

Ex-cemetery worker sentenced to prison for taking 597 vases
By Layla Bohm
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Last updated: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:53 AM PDT


It was hard enough when Sherry Klein's mother and brother died in a February 2004 vehicle collision in Lodi. Then her father died soon after the crash.

And then the copper vases on all three Cherokee Memorial Park graves disappeared two years later.


Joel Chavez

Klein paid more than $11,000 to have the coffins dug up and moved to a different cemetery, she said during Monday's sentencing of Joel Chavez, who admitted to stealing nearly 600 vases.

"I had to watch their caskets come out of the ground," she told San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Terrence Van Oss. "I had to stand there and smell the odor of my family. I want the maximum punishment (for Chavez)."

After hearing from another victim — a veteran prosecutor who drove from San Diego for the court appearance — Van Oss sentenced Chavez to state prison, rather than probation. Prison and probation diagnostic reports had split on a sentence recommendation since Chavez repeatedly apologized and had no criminal record.

"It appears that Mr. Chavez did this over a long period of time. Additionally, he did this while in a position of trust," Van Oss said of the man who had worked at Lodi Memorial Cemetery until he was arrested July 21.

Prosecutors had refused to make a plea offer that would result in a lighter sentence, so Chavez instead pleaded guilty Dec. 18 to all felony charges of grand theft and cemetery vandalism, leaving his fate to the judge. He apologized Monday, asking that he be forgiven.

"I know that I did something wrong. Even I personally cannot understand how I could do something like that," Chavez said through a Spanish interpreter.

"All I'm asking is an opportunity to have a chance."

Last summer, vases began disappearing from hundreds of graves, and investigators believed they were targeted for their copper content. Through a sting operation aimed at recycling centers, San Joaquin County Sheriff's deputies pretended to sell illegal copper goods, then searched the businesses.


Copper theft at a glanceThe San Joaquin County Sheriff's deputies who found hundreds of bronze vases that had been stolen from cemeteries in Lodi are part of a rural crimes task force.

One crime they see regularly is theft of copper — or, in the vases incident, bronze that can be melted down to get copper.

Farmers regularly report copper wire being ripped from irrigation and pump lines, and electrical companies find whole pieces of metal missing.
While that creates business for repair companies, they are also being victimized: Entire rolls of copper, which weigh hundreds of pounds each, disappear overnight.

The theft is tied to the cost of copper, especially in China, which has drastically increased in recent years.

The vase theft case was broken when deputies found hundreds of undamaged vases at a Tracy recycling center. Some had since been sold to a Stockton center, where they found even more vases. Sales transaction information led them to Chavez.

At the time, the owner of the Tracy business said he first called the Tracy Police Department to see if they had any vase theft reports.

He then agreed to buy the vases.

Gary Rempel, the victim and prosecutor from San Diego whose mother's grave was one of the targets, pointed out that Chavez had to make multiple trips to move so many vases and that he stood to make about $6,000, even though he already had a job.


Nearly 600 vases, such as this one, were taken by Joel Chavez. (Courtesy photo)Van Oss wondered who really benefits from such thefts.

"You can't tell me these salvage yards don't know what they're taking," Van Oss said. "They're getting tax write-offs for running a business."

Deputies ultimately recovered 597 vases, Deputy District Attorney Steve Hahn said, though the actual number of vases missing from the cemeteries is unknown unless they do a full audit and contact each grave owner to see if they merely took the vase home for sake-keeping.

And, though the vases were returned, there was no way to make sure they went to the correct owners. Klein, for instance, received weathered vases even though her family members had 2-year-old headstones.

The cemeteries said their costs were more than $22,000, which Van Oss ordered Chavez to pay in restitution.

However, Van Oss said, there is almost no chance that Chavez will pay that money.

Van Oss sentenced Chavez to 16 months in state prison, but with his jail time and good-time credits — standard in sentencing rules — Chavez had already served 369 days by Monday.

Additionally, a border patrol hold means that Chavez is expected to be deported to Mexico once he is released from prison.

Chavez had nearly $2,800 in his possession when he was arrested, and Van Oss honored Hahn's request to put that money toward restitution. Chavez's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Pete Fox, did not oppose the request.

Rempel praised Hahn for thinking of asking that Chavez's money be seized, and he had no kind words for Chavez.

He has read news reports of similar thefts in other areas and hopes Monday's punishment — a prison sentence despite recovery of the vases and voluntary guilty pleas — acts as a deterrent.

But he also expressed skepticism.

"How do you rehabilitate a grave robber?" Rempel asked.



http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2007/0 ... 070327.txt

That piece of crap is only sorry because he got caught!

Illegal aliens are great opportunists. (No, I'm not being prejudiced. Look
at their methods and motives for coming here.) I hope the cemetary management is happy now with its decision to hire an illegal alien. They deserve any problems this episode cost them.

Robbing the dead! What would the Catholic church say about that? That this sinner was just trying to feed his needy desperate family and deserves sanctuary?

Originally Posted by ShockedinCalifornia

Robbing the dead! What would the Catholic church say about that? That this sinner was just trying to feed his needy desperate family and deserves sanctuary?

Of course they would come up with some lame excuse, but if it were a legal American citizen, we would be up the creek.