By DORIS COOK
Staff Writer
dcook@starbeacon.com
MIDDLEFIELD - -Acting on a tip, Middlefield Police Department investigators last Friday used a search warrant at a Hiram Township home to confiscate hordes of cabinets stolen from a Middlefield manufacturing firm.
Suspects in the cabinet heist case are identified as Thomas and Nicholas Knipper of 10423 Limeridge Road, Hiram Township, said Police Chief Joseph Stehlik.
The search warrant was issued by Portage County Judge John J. Plough. Middlefield officers were aided for the search by Trumbull, Ashtabula, and Geauga (TAG) Law Enforcement Task Force and Portage County Drug Task Force, Stehlik said.
After gaining entrance to the Limeridge Road home and property, the officers recovered more than $83,000 worth of stolen Kraftmaid cabinets there.
Stehlik said all the Kraftmaid cabinets found were bar coded with manufacture dates and inventory numbers. The search ended about 3 a.m. last Saturday when the last of the stolen goods were loaded into a 28-foot trailer.
The trailer is now parked behind Middlefield's police station. The theft investigation is being forwarded directly to Geauga County Prosecutor David Joyce for action, Stehlik said.
The search yielded a kitchen full of the alleged stolen cabinets at the Limeridge Road Knipper house. It is valued at $20,000. Hundred of items were found in several outbuildings and garages on the property.
Stehlik said Thomas Knipper was a mechanic employed by Star Trailer, a subcontractor to Kraftmaid Cabinetry for storage trailers. Knipper had access to the trailers, which were located across Route 608 South from the sprawling manufacturing plant.
Kraftmaid officials last November notified Middlefield police of their suspicions about returned inventory missing. Stehlik said the case went "cold" until an informant alerted police the cabinets were being sold through a "black market business" at the Limeridge road address.
Originally printed: 9/2/2006
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Middlefield police recover stolen Kraftmaid cabinets
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