Fired subcontractor accused of stealing items from employees at Harvey Mine
A subcontractor who was fired from his job last week at Harvey Mine is accused of stealing numerous items from several lockers and parked cars as he left the Greene County mining complex.
David Arthur Cummins Jr. was terminated from his job as a subcontractor with GMS Mine Repair & Maintenance Dec. 21, but he was not seen leaving the property in Morris Township until nearly three hours later, his supervisors told Greene Regional police.
Officers said they found evidence employee lockers and several unlocked vehicles had been entered earlier that day, with a wide range of personal items – including electronics, cellphones, guns, cash, clothing and memory cards with family photographs – being stolen from at least 10 victims.
“The monetary value of some of these items are difficult to discern, as many are heirlooms or contain irreplaceable content,” Greene Regional police Chief Zachary Sams wrote in court documents.
One of the stolen items was a memory card with “years of pictures of family and children,” Sams said.
Nearly $300 in cash, five cellphones, three firearms, two debit cards and a belt buckle were also stolen, Sams said. He added that surveillance cameras at the complex recorded some of the thefts, which helped investigators to identify Cummins.
“More are expected to report (thefts) in the near future,” Sams said.
It was not known if the items were recovered, or if the employees who were victimized worked for subcontractor GMS or Consol Energy, which operates the mining complex at 685 Patterson Creek Road about four miles east of Graysville. It’s also unclear why Cummins was terminated from his job at GMS.
Officials at GMS at its local office in Waynesburg and corporate headquarters in Maryland could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Cummins, 26, of 55 Knight Lane, South Franklin Township, was charged Monday with eight felony counts of theft and three charges of receiving stolen property, along with 23 misdemeanor counts of theft from a vehicle. He had not been arraigned on the charges as of Thursday afternoon.