Uncle, nephew plead guilty to Army-Navy Surplus store conspiracy
Two family members who pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to receive stolen military property to sell at an Army-Navy Surplus store in California Borough will have to forfeit $150,000 to the Washington County District Attorney’s Drug Task Force.
Thomas Miske, 64, of Brownsville, and his nephew, Michael Miske, 32, of California, appeared Wednesday before Judge Valarie Costanzo, who admitted them to the Intermediate Punishment Program for 23 months. They are to initially serve six months on electronic home monitoring, according to Assistant District Attorney John Friedman.
State law allows both district attorneys and the state attorney general to seize property associated with illegal activities.
As part of a plea agreement, charges of dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activities were dismissed.
Items seized two years ago from the California Army-Navy Surplus Store were part of a cache of property stolen from Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C.
Prosecutors said a”complex burglary ring” pulled off at least five burglaries of a building on the base, one of which resulted in the arrests of two Marines and led to the recruitment of three confidential informants to assist in the investigation, an affidavit supporting the search warrant in the California case states.
Beverly Ashton, a detective working for Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone, served a search warrant at the California store as part of the local investigation into delivery of stolen merchandise to the store at 1148 Wood St.
The burglaries netted cold-weather sleeping tents, boots, flames-resistant blouses and trousers, expeditionary stoves, bed nets, plate carriers, berets, gloves, fleece jackets and other goods. Agents also seized $500,000 in cash and unused personal checks, vehicles and real estate from locations in Shippensburg, central Pennsylvania, and in Ridgefield, N.J. The military property carries a national stock number on sealed, tagged packaging that isn’t available for public distribution.
In all, eight people were linked to the burglary ring that was broken up and the first two suspects arrested in October 2013 when Naval Criminal Investigative Services agents conducted surveillance around the same building where $350,000 worth of USMC property had been stolen within the past month.