Scrap Metal Company Charged With Buying Stolen Guardrails

New Jersey State Police have charged a scrap metal company in Paterson, N.J., with buying large sections of guardrails that had been disappearing from New Jersey state highways for the last four years.

The company, Zager Brothers Scrap Metal, was paying large amounts of cash for aluminum guardrails and other forms of scrap metal without asking enough questions, said Sgt. Kevin Rehmann of the New Jersey State Police.

The police also said that burglary charges had been filed against Ramon Benitez, a Paterson man who the police said had been spotted unscrewing the bolts on a guardrail in Paterson last fall.

The announcement came as part of a police investigation that began in April 2000, after sections of the aluminum protective rails that run along heavily traveled sections of I-80, I-78 and State Routes 46 and 19 began slowly disappearing in the dead of night.

"It was really bizarre," Sergeant Rehmann said. "One night they were there, the next day there were these strange gaps along the road."

Benitez was arrested in October, but the police, continuing their investigation.

New Jersey police said they had determined who had been buying the metal. The police said that when detectives arrived at the Zager Brothers scrap yard, they found sections of the missing highway rails. The company was charged with third-degree receiving stolen property. The (Pennsylvania) Morning Call