Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/IFCAR
Ford Econoline van
By Forum Staff
The price of scrap metal has just gone up.
And for one Queens man, it will be paid in time – served behind bars.
Aziz Salaam, 43, of Jamaica, will spend up to four years in prison for selling stolen Econoline vans to a scrap yard in Ozone Park, for cash.
Salaam has been convicted on five counts of first-degree falsifying business records, fourth degree criminal possession of stolen property and third degree unauthorized use of a vehicle.
The defendant will spend between two and four years in prison for his illegal salesmanship after trading a total of five Econolpne vans to a scrap yard for payment in little over a month during the summer of 2016.
The defendant submitted falsified documents, including MV35 forms – which vehicle owners provide when they cannot produce a valid title of ownership, to transfer a vehicle to a dismantler or scrap processor. He also supplied his driver’s license.
He acted alone three times and on two other occasions, in consort with others, also apprehended, in order to sell the stolen vehicles.
Two other defendants, Keith Royster and Steven Fields, both of Jamaica, have plead guilty to third-degree criminal possession of stolen property and have each been sentenced to one year in jail.
