3 Charged in $500,000 Oil Theft Scheme

Three businessmen were charged Tuesday in the thefts of at least $500,000 worth of crude oil from a Southern California Gas Co. storage facility in Valencia.

Accused of 25 counts each of grand theft were the owner of a Bakersfield oil company, the owner of a Lancaster trucking firm and a Valencia oil broker.

Authorities have now implicated six men in what they say was a complicated scheme involving as much as $3 million in stolen oil, Kern County Sheriff’s Sgt. Larry Congdon said. The thefts, methodically repeated for as many as four years, may have involved as much as one-tenth of the 15,000 barrels of crude oil produced monthly at the gas company’s Honor Rancho facility, he said.

Could Not Be Reached for Comment

The latest to be accused were John Stuart, 47, the owner of a Bakersfield firm called Stuart Petroleum; Kenneth Ward, 46, the owner of an independent Lancaster trucking firm, and Charles Petrillose, 51, a Valencia oil broker. All three agreed to surrender this morning, Congdon said.

None of the three could be reached for comment Tuesday.

The action follows the December arrests of two gas company employees and an employee of Ward’s trucking company after a three-month investigation by the Kern County and Los Angeles County sheriffs’ departments and gas company security agents. The investigation was triggered by an anonymous tip. It led to the seizure of numerous documents from homes and offices of each of the accused men, Congdon said.

Michael Matlock, 45, a supervisor at the Honor Rancho plant; Henry R. Workman, 44, a gas company shift supervisor, and Jerry Dennis Hardiman, 31, a Lancaster truck driver, have been ordered to appear with Stuart, Ward and Petrillose at a Wednesday arraignment in West Kern County Municipal Court in Bakersfield, Congdon said. The three are free on bail.

The thefts allegedly began with the stealing of crude oil from an unmetered valve at gas company storage tanks overseen by Matlock and Workman, Congdon said. He said it is believed that the oil then was driven to Bakersfield by Hardiman and sold to Stuart’s company. The investigator said Petrillose, a commercial sales representative for the Mobil Oil Co., is suspected of arranging the sales, Ward and Stuart of conspiring to transport, purchase and resell the stolen goods.

Stuart’s oil company is suspected of reselling the stolen oil to a variety of companies, Congdon said. Congdon said those companies and Mobil do not appear to be a part of the scheme.

Congdon added, however, that further arrests are possible. He said officials are seeking to determine whether other companies bought oil they knew was stolen.

Phony Receipts Seized Congdon said phony receipts from a non-existent oil company in the Santa Clarita Valley were seized in a December search of the Stuart company’s offices.

Preliminary estimates place the total value of the stolen oil at $2.5 million to $3 million, the investigator said.

The men are charged in 25 oil thefts that happened in 1984, Congdon said. In December, however, authorities said hundreds of similar thefts may have taken place at the plant for as long as four years. They said 1,500 42-gallon barrels may have been stolen from the company each month, or one-tenth of the 15,000 barrels produced monthly at the site.