Carson Man Charged With Stealing Electricity From Utility Company

A Carson man faces two felony charges that he stole as much as $2,000 worth of electricity from Southern California Edison Co., which is cracking down on customers who do not pay for power.

Jesse Bean, 27, a refrigerator installer, was charged Thursday in South Bay Municipal Court with one count of tampering with electric lines and one count of stealing electricity. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison.

Bean could not be reached for comment.

The utility company was tipped to the alleged theft by a call to its hot line, one of several innovations designed to cut the amount of power stolen by customers, said Claude LaBaw, who supervises the utility’s anti-theft department that was expanded this year.

After the complaint was made in 1985, the utility installed a second meter on an electric pole outside Bean’s home. The meter showed that a significant amount of power was being lost between the power pole and Bean’s home, LaBaw said.

Decision to Prosecute

But LaBaw said it was only this year, under the company’s more aggressive policy, that officials decided to seek criminal charges against Bean.

Sheriff’s detectives served a search warrant June 23 at Bean’s home on East Adams Street. They found connectors used to draw some power from the line and into the home before the electricity passed through the meter, Detective John Williams said.

“We found this system,” Williams said. “You could run air conditioning and appliances and get bills that were very, very low.”

As part of its crackdown, the utility in February hired four specialists who teach meter readers how to detect cheating. The utility also relies on a computer program that compares periods of power use for each home and alerts the company to sharp decreases. And Edison is experimenting with meter seals that will make it easier for readers to detect tampering.

“People find ways of bypassing the meter and tampering with the meter somehow,” LaBaw said.

301 Billed for Energy

Twelve customers have been prosecuted so far this year for obtaining electricity free by diverting it around Edison meters. Six customers were prosecuted in 1987.

This year, 301 customers have been billed for energy that the company said was illegally diverted. The power company billed customers for $234,000 in stolen energy in April and May, contrasted with $129,000 during the same two months in 1987.

Utility officials said they are not sure how much energy is stolen each year.

Besides the lost revenue, utility officials said they worry that illegal wiring can be a danger to other customers and repair people, as well as a fire hazard.