Top Rail Bandit Is Sentenced
The leader of a group of railroad bandits who targeted trains for designer clothes, electronic equipment and other goods was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison.
Edward Mongon, 29, pleaded guilty to racketeering in April. He was one of 22 members of the Conrail Boyz who had pleaded guilty and had been sentenced in the case.
The Conrail Boyz took their name from Conrail, whose Northeastern freight routes were divided between Norfolk Southern and CSX in 1999.
Two defendants -- a fugitive and Mongon’s 82-year-old grandmother -- remained to be sentenced.
Railroad police had made dozens of arrests of gang members since 1992, but most were low-ranking members of the group. To dismantle the gang, Conrail joined with state investigators to track stolen goods to the group’s leadership.
In one robbery in January 2001, the gang drove a container with 17,496 Sony PlayStation units worth $5 million out of a rail yard, railroad officials said.
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