YOUNGSTOWN — A burglary and fencing ring police say stole televisions, horse trailers, riding lawn mowers and motorcycles was charged in a 68-count indictment Thursday by a Mahoning County grand jury.
Three men were named ringleaders and face RICO charges under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: Bobby Mock, 39, now in the Mahoning County Jail; Brian Bleggi, 41, Black Oak Lane, Austintown; and Timothy Marino, 41, Ridge Road, Cortland.
“This was a criminal enterprise spearheaded by Bobby Mock,” Warren police detective Jeffrey Hoolihan said.
A Mahoning County grand jury handed up the multi-count indictment alleging more than a dozen people in Mahoning and Trumbull counties were part of the wide-reaching criminal organization.
The indictment claims members of the crime ring broke into several businesses in the area during the summer of 2007, stealing cash; Women, Infant and Children benefits; and everything from motorcycles to horse trailers to cars and gas grills. Targeted businesses include Marino’s Italian Cafe, Grand Buffet, Home Depot in Howland, Leonard’s Truck and Trailer and King Kar Motors.
A news conference detailing the indictment and investigation — including what happened to the merchandise once it was stolen — is scheduled for today in Warren. Representatives from the Organized Crime Commission could not be reached for comment.
The yearlong investigation dubbed “Operation Bandit,” involved investigators from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, Canfield, Austintown, Boardman, Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Warren, Hubbard Township, Milton, Liberty, Beaver, Youngstown, Weathersfield, North Jackson, Bazetta, the Ohio Organized Crime Commission, the Ohio Attorney General, and the Mahoning and Trumbull counties prosecutors’ offices.
Mock, 38, formerly of Canfield, held a SWAT team at bay for 10 hours at a Liberty hotel last summer after police tried to pick him up in connection to thefts from automatic teller machines. He was free because police used him as a confidential informant after asking his previous sentence on breaking and entering and receiving stolen property charges be reconsidered.
He is serving time in the Mahoning County Jail after being resentenced on the 2006 convictions from which he’d been reprieved.
Police say he stole an ATM from a Cornersburg supermarket July 5 after an earlier attempt was thwarted, and then he tried to steal an ATM from the lobby of St. Elizabeth Health Center on July 15.
Hospital police tried to stop the St. Elizabeth theft, but the officer was thrown out of a van that then rammed a police cruiser before making his getaway.
When Youngstown police tried to serve warrants on those charges July 18, Mock and an accomplice holed up in the Holiday Inn Metroplex, police said. He did not come out until members of the Mahoning County Crisis Response Team lobbed in tear gas and dragged him out.
At the time, prosecutors said he’d “spectacularly” violated the terms of his release.
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