Trucking Company Owner Pleads Guilty in Missouri to Cargo Theft Scheme
A Memphis, Tenn., business owner has pleaded guilty in federal court to his role in a cargo theft scheme that included a theft in West Plains, Mo.
Tammy Dickinson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that Earl Stanley Nunn pleaded guilty to theft of an interstate shipment.
Nunn, the owner of Nu World Trucking LLC, led a theft ring that used Nu World resources to steal cargo in various states. They did so by “bob-tailing” – traveling in a road tractor truck without a semi-trailer attached – through truck stops and service stations located on or near interstate highways, looking for parked and unattended semi-trailers that were not coupled to road tractors, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
When they located a target semi-trailer, they would steal it, and the goods it contained, by coupling it to their road tractor truck and driving off. They usually transported the stolen goods to the Chicago, Ill., and Detroit, Mich., areas to be “fenced” or sold, according to Dickinson.
Nunn’s co-conspirators included his nephew, Michael Lee Sherley of Memphis, Tenn. — who pleaded guilty on March 19, 2014, and his son, Roderick Nunn — who pleaded guilty in a related case in the Western District of Michigan, and others.
The government alleges the ring committed thefts in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Nunn and Sherley pled guilty to stealing a 2000 Wabash trailer valued at $7,500 on May 11, 2013, at the Snappy Mart Truck Stop in West Plains. The trailer, which was owned by Bryant Freight LLC and contained a load of Green Giant canned corn worth $73,008, was in transit from Minnesota to an Arkansas food bank. The pair admitted they traveled through Missouri and Indiana with the cargo before being caught in Michigan.
Nunn and Sherley each are subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $250,000.
Prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Mohlhenrich, the case was investigated by the FBI’s Memphis Cargo Theft Task Force, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the West Plains, Mo., Police Department and the Michigan State Highway Patrol.