Higher court finds math error in thief’s penalty

A Chelan County Superior Court judge must recalculate the restitution owed by an aluminum thief after the Court of Appeals checked his math.

Judge T.W. “Chip” Small sentenced Joseph Mandoli to home monitoring and restitution of $17,945 after he and an accomplice stole an estimated 9,000 pounds of aluminum from Alcoa’s Wenatchee Works. Mandoli and Andrew Frederick, who received home monitoring plus two days in jail, stole the metal tabs and shunts in three loads between May and October 2013; police discovered their plot as Mandoli tried to leave Alcoa premises with the third load.

The two men sold the first two loads for the value of the metal, and their true weight was not known. In court, Frederick estimated the third load, at 3,895 pounds, was 30 to 40 percent heavier than the two previous loads.

Small based the restitution Mandoli owed to Alcoa on Frederick’s estimate, calculating a $3.11 per pound market price for 9,665 pounds. But in an appellate ruling issued Thursday, Appellate Judge Laurel Siddoway found that the total weight of stolen materials based on Frederick’s estimate should actually be 8,959 pounds.

That math changes the restitution owed by Mandoli from $17,945 to $15,749.