Couple jailed for smuggling silver from Pa. plant

[July 01, 2009]  GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A husband and wife have been jailed for smuggling $2.1 million worth of scrap silver out of a western Pennsylvania plant in their lunch boxes.

Fifty-two-year-old Pamela Shermenti and 57-year-old William Shermenti, of Loyalhanna Township, will begin serving their sentences July 6. A Westmoreland County judge on Monday sentenced the wife to one to two years in the county jail; her husband will serve nine to 23 months.

The couple must also pay $250,000 in restitution to AMI DOCUCO, the company they worked for while stealing the hockey puck-sized silver disks from 2006 to 2008. The plant in Murrysville, about 15 miles east of Pittsburgh, makes electrical equipment.

The couple sold some of the scrap to a dealer for about $600,000.

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Information from: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, http://pghtrib.com/

[Associated Press]

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