A 34-year-old Las Vegas man convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in coins after being caught in Vancouver was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
Richard Anthony Pena was part of a scheme to steal money from coin-cashing machines in grocery stores and other businesses in multiple states, totaling an estimated $715,000 in losses and damages to coin-cashing machines, the Oregon district of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement earlier this week.
Pena was also ordered to pay around $582,000 in restitution.
Pena was arrested in Clark County in December 2021 for disguising himself as an employee of a coin-cashing company. He pretended to service the machines, and then would walk away with the machine’s coin vault, the attorney’s office said.
Officials said Pena started stealing coins in January 2021, and continued this scheme en route from his home in Las Vegas to a grocery store in Vancouver, where an employee called police.
When Clark County sheriff’s deputies searched Pena’s rented cars and hotel room, they found the disguise he used, tools to break into the machines and laundry baskets and bags filled with millions of coins.
Investigators seized about 1.5 million stolen coins amounting to more than $133,000.
On March 10, 2022, a federal grand jury in Portland indicted Pena on conspiring with others to transport and transporting stolen money. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge on March 10, 2023.
