UPS Truck Loader Stole Cell Phones, Police Say

This post was reported and written by Jack Tobias.

An Allentown man working at the UPS center in Bethlehem Township stole seven cell phones worth almost $2,700 while doing his job as a truck loader, court records say.

Marqee Dashon Brown, 23, of 434 Allen St., admitted to the thefts in a June 4 written statement to a company official, who watched surveillance video the day before that showed Brown stealing phones, the records say.

”For week and half been taking things from UPS,” the statement said. “Took a couple of phones and sold them to random people. Nobody else was involved.”

Two days after Brown made the written statement, the company official and township Patrolman Anthony Stevens watched the video from June 3. At that point, Brown is referred to as an ex-employee.

Brown is seen “tearing and ripping packages open, removing cell phones, then concealing them on his person,” Stevens writes in a criminal complaint.

Brown is accused of stealing seven phones with a total retail value of $2,677.

The company official told Stevens that Brown was hired April 18 to work Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. as a loader/unloader at the facility at 2301 Highland Ave.

He was assigned to specific trailers and would be the sole person having access to products to be delivered to buyers, the complaint says.

The official said he learned at 6 a.m. May 28 that “there were numerous boxes that were ripped open with the product being stolen.”

An arrest warrant was approved June 20.

Brown was charged with theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property – both level-three felonies.

He was arraigned Thursday by District Judge Joseph Barner of Lower Nazareth Township and released on $5,000 unsecured bail.