(The following story by Audrey Carter appeared on the Appalachian News-Express website on June 27, 2009.)
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A Pike County man was among those police believe stole an estimated $190,000 worth of material from Norfolk Southern Railroad in Mingo County and took it into Kentucky to sell. He and two other men are now facing federal charges.
A federal indictment was filed Tuesday in Huntington, W.Va., charging 41-year-old Thomas G. Hamilton of Pikeville, 65-year-old Clarence Meadows of Paintsville, and 34-year-old C. Roby Meadows of Mt. Sterling with conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen goods.
The indictment charges that on five different occasions from July 2004 to November 2004, the men stole railroad tracks and other track materials in the Kermit area and took them to Salyersville, and on one occasion to Prestonsburg, to sell for scrap value.
Watson, 31, whose sealed indictment was handed down last December in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, had been lodged in the Pike County Detention Center to await extradition to answer these charges. Watson was later transferred to Carter County by U.S. Marshals.
The original indictment states that Watson and “other persons, known and unknown, did knowingly conspire to commit offenses against the United States in violation of interstate transportation and sale of stolen railroad tracks.”
According to the complaint, the object of the conspiracy for Watson and his co-conspirators was to enrich themselves by selling railroad tracks and other track material in interstate commerce that they had stolen from the rightful owner.
It alleges the suspects did this by traveling from Kentucky to Mingo County for the purpose of removing and stealing property belonging to the railroad, and taking it across the West Virginia state line to Kentucky to sell. This caused a loss in the amount of approximately $190,000 for the replacement of said railroad property.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr.