A 30-year-old Federal Way man failed to appear in King County Superior Court Thursday in Kent to face charges of seven counts of first-degree trafficking in stolen property for allegedly taking more than $1 million worth of items from the Office Depot warehouse in Kent.
The court issued a bench warrant with $10,000 bail for the arrest of Kenneth N. Ngugi because of his failure to appear in court, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Co-defendant Dion Lawrence Alexander, 36, of Tacoma, appeared in court at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center and pleaded not guilty to the same charges of seven counts of first-degree trafficking in stolen property. Alexander is scheduled to return to court July 6 when a trial date could be set or attorneys could ask for more time to prepare the case.
Prosecutors claim Alexander and Ngugi ran a scheme where Alexander, the warehouse manager, would remove ink cartridges and other items and pass them to Ngugi waiting outside the facility in a car, according to charging papers filed June 10. Ngugi would then sell the items on eBay through PayPal accounts.
An Office Depot loss prevention manager contacted Kent Police in March 2010 to report a loss of more than $1.2 million of toner and ink from the warehouse since September 2008. Office Depot security had not discovered how the items were taken until the company installed video surveillance cameras in early March 2010.
The Federal Way man estimated he had stolen at least $500,000 worth of merchandise from Office Depot.
Detectives obtained a search warrant for the eBay and PayPal accounts owned by Ngugi and discovered transactions worth more than $1 million over about a seven-year period.
One company had purchased $613,027 in ink and toner from 2007 to 2010.
Office Depot reported that inventories of the losses of ink and toner from June 2007 to April 2010 totaled $2.1 million.
The men were arrested for investigation of theft in April 2010 and are now facing the charges. Kent Police turned over probable cause documents to prosecutors in December 2010.
Talk to us
Please share your story tips by emailing editor@kentreporter.com.
To share your opinion for publication, submit a letter through our website https://www.kentreporter.com/submit-letter/. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) Please keep letters to 300 words or less.
