Suspected Toilet Valve Bandit Facing a Host of New Charges

A Brookfield man already charged with stealing dozens of expensive toilet valves from fast-food restaurant and institutional restrooms has also been charged with six counts of identity theft for using a plumbing company's name to fence them.

Cory James Feerick, 33, of Brookfield was charged March 28 in Waukesha County with five counts of theft of property and on April 16 in Milwaukee County with six counts of felony identity theft.

Each count of property theft is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months in jail. The new identity theft charges each carry a maximum penalty of up to six years in prison.

According to criminal complaint in the newly filed identity theft cases:

From Sept. 21 through Jan. 10, Feerick stole four flush valves from a Root River Parkway pavilion in Greendale, seven from Milwaukee Area Technical College in Milwaukee, two from a McDonald's restaurant in West Allis, six from ITT Technical Institute in Greenfield, and a whopping 32 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for a total of 51.

But that wasn't all. The Waukesha County theft charges detail disappearing toilet valves attributed to Feerick's work at a Brookfield Pick 'n Save, two thefts about a month apart from the same Arby's restaurant on Capitol Drive in Brookfield, and two separate thefts two days apart from Waukesha County Technical College in Pewaukee.

In addition, stolen toilet valves were reported during the same period from the Mayfair Road Taco Bell and the Burleigh Street Cousin's Subs shop in Wauwatosa, and from a number of other locations in Milwaukee.

Wauwatosa police said they suspected Feerick in those cases and offered to assist in the investigation and prosecution but were told to wait for the Waukesha County investigation to unfold. Yet more charges could potentially be filed.

Busted, then busted again

It was Feerick's rampant theft of valves at UWM that undid him, Brookfield police said in January.

On Jan. 13, UWM police asked the City of Brookfield police to assist in the arrest of Feerick at his residence in the 4000 block of North 135th Street, and he was taken into custody.

During the course of the investigation, police got a tip that Feerick had been selling the stolen valves at National Salvage, 600 S. 44th St. in Milwaukee.

UWM police spoke to a representative of the company who said that each time Feerick sold valves there he filled out an ownership questionnaire indicating he was doing so in the name of AJ Graf Plumbing in Kenosha, and he presented a valid driver's license as required.

Feerick told National Salvage, the company representative said, that the valves were scrap from a Kenosha commercial jobsite.

The owner of AJ Graf told police that Feerick had worked for him before, last in June 2012, and then only on residential jobs, never commercial sites. He said he had never given Feerick permission to sell materials for salvage.

All told, police believe that Feerick stole more than $30,000 worth of valves, each costing from $300 to $600 to replace, not counting installation.

For that, the six visits Feerick paid to National Salvage netted him less than $600 in scrap value at around $2 a pound for the plumbing fixtures.