Guilty plea entered in theft of copper from trains
Peter T. Williams pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony grand larceny for stealing thousands of dollars worth of copper from trains. He sold the metal to a junkyard to buy drugs for himself and his now-jailed girlfriend.
Williams, 28, has been in custody since his arrest shortly after break-ins last July at the WNY Railway Historical Society in Hamburg and the Eden yards of Buffalo Southern Railway. State Supreme Court Justice Christopher J. Burns told Williams he will likely cap his prison term at five years at his May 28 sentencing.
Prosecutors Lawrence M. Schewegler and Rachel Paranjape said Williams and Lisa L. Brantell, 27, his girlfriend and co-defendant, are jointly liable for $60,639.25 in copper they stole from engines at both locations last last July.
They said Hamburg police arrested Williams, of Newton Road in Hamburg, and Brantell, of Hodge Street in Buffalo, shortly after the break-ins because they were filmed at the Fillmore Avenue junkyard where they sold the stolen copper.
The prosecutors said Brantell pleaded guilty to grand larceny April 22 was sentenced by Burns to six months of local jail time and five years on probation.
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