Mom, Son Charged With Stealing Copper From Nuclear Power Plant

SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. (AP) - A man who used to work as a contractor at a western Pennsylvania nuclear power plant has been charged with stealing more than 1,400 pounds of scrap copper from an outlying storage building at the plant, and having his mother sell it.

Online court records don't list attorneys for 35-year-old Joseph Plum Jr. or 56-year-old Darlene Johnson, both of New Brighton.

Neither have listed phones and both are due in court for a preliminary hearing Thursday.

The Beaver County Times reports police were alerted by when a scrap yard told them Johnson had been selling large amounts of industrial-grade copper.

A FirstEnergy spokeswoman says the copper was stolen from a building used to store construction material and scrap outside the secure perimeter of the company's Beaver County Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport.

Featured Local Savings

More from CBS News

Dive team searching Dunlap Creek in Fayette County in connection to shooting death of 83-year-old man

Human remains found in Aliquippa

Man charged with homicide in shooting death of 83-year-old Anthony Decenzo

Man pronounced dead following crash into tree in Washington County