Military-Vehicles: [MV] Fort McCoy
[MV] Fort McCoy
MVBOATNUT@aol.com
Thu, 24 Jul 1997 20:57:10 -0400 (EDT)
Man gets 8 years for thefts from Fort McCoy
He was convicted of devising the plan to steal153 vehicles from base
By Kevin Murphy
Special to the Journal Sentinel
July 24, 1997
Madison -- The so-called mastermind of the nation's largest heist of vehicles
from a military base
was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to eight years and one month in
prison.
Leo A. Piatz Jr., 37, of Hudson, was accused of devising the plan to steal
153 vehicles, including
missile launchers, tanks, armored cargo carriers, Jeeps and trucks, from Fort
McCoy.
Piatz was convicted in March of conspiracy to defraud the government, eight
counts of
converting military vehicles for his own use and two counts of bribery.
Piatz bribed two civilian employees in late 1995 to get access to the base in
Monroe County, where
he first took scrapped vehicles that had been used for artillery target
practice. Helped by Fort
McCoy employees, Piatz had vehicles prized by collectors shipped to the base
from other military
bases for removal and sale.
Piatz was helped by former base former employees Donald Crandall, of Sparta,
and Dennis
Lambert, of Black River Falls. Piatz also got Grant Kruger, of Maplewood,
Minn., president of the
Military Vehicles and Arms Museum of Minnesota, to help re-title and market
the vehicles and
Loyd Pilgrim, of Amery, to haul them and others to help sell them.
As FBI and Defense Department agents began investigating the disappearance of
equipment from
Fort McCoy in 1996, Piatz unknowingly hired an undercover agent to improve
the paperwork he
was using to get the vehicles off the base. Piatz planned to take the
vehicles to a former Nike
missile base near Roberts, where he stored them.
Crandall previously pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge and Kruger,
Lambert and Pilgrim
were convicted in a trial in June. Two other alleged co-conspirators were
acquitted.
Prosecutors do not know exactly how much money Piatz made from the sale of
the equipment,
but Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Bach quickly listed six transactions on
which Piatz grossed a
total of $233,000. Piatz's sentence was partly based on the value of the
equipment, which Bach
estimated at between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.
The amount of restitution Piatz and the other co-defendants owe the
government will be
determined at a Sept. 10 hearing.
U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb said she gave Piatz a longer sentence
because he lied about his
involvement in the conspiracy when he testified during the trial. He was
ordered to report to
prison Sept. 20.
Piatz did not steal the vehicles but was authorized to take them as payment
for preparing other
vehicles as targets for artillery practice, said his attorney, Steven
Pihlaja. Pihlaja said the case will
be appealed.
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