Two brothers are facing felony theft charges after Las Vegas police say they swiped a Rockwell power module worth about $124,000 from a local property, broke it down for scrap, and walked away with only $369. Authorities identified the suspects as Casey E. Lewis, 41, and Alexander M. Lewis, 37, who turned themselves in on March 24. The case highlights how high-value industrial electrical equipment can be quietly stripped out of facilities and funneled into local recycling yards for a fraction of its worth.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, investigators say surveillance video shows the men loading the large module into a work truck before disassembling it and taking the pieces to a recycler. Justice court records obtained by the paper show both brothers are charged with felony theft of property valued at more than $100,000 and that cash bonds have been posted in the case.
Scrap-metal theft has been a recurring headache across the Valley, occasionally knocking out service and triggering expensive emergency repairs. In one February 2025 incident, copper thieves hit an NV Energy facility, forcing crews to repair a substation after outages near the Strip. As FOX5 Las Vegas reported, utilities and businesses say thieves often go after heavy electrical components because they can be moved and sold quickly.
How Investigators Say the Heist Unfolded
Police told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the Rockwell unit disappeared from a Trane Technologies property on Feb. 5. The module, rated for about 1,215 amps and weighing roughly 650 pounds, was identified in Trane’s records. The paper reported that Trane’s tracking data placed the brothers’ truck at an SA Recycling yard on Western Avenue, where the stripped-down components were turned in for $369…