FREEPORT

A Cumberland County grand jury indicted a Freeport man suspected of stealing more than $3,000 in copper fittings and piping from a home construction site on Newfield Road.

According to a Cumberland County District Attorney’s indictment list released Friday, 31-year-old Linwood Maynard Grover III of Litchfield Road now faces one charge of Class C burglary, one charge of Class C theft, and one charge of Class E violating conditions of release in connection with the incident.

Detective Gino Bianchini of the Freeport Police Department said an investigation that began Sept. 30 connected Grover to the burglary, which was reported on Oct. 3.

Bianchini said that police received a tip to keep an eye on the Newfield Road home in late September. Officers staged a stakeout for nearly six hours on the night of Sept. 30, to no avail.

On Oct. 3, Bianchini said, a burglar targeted the property, in a theft that involved not only pipe fittings but actual lengths of pipe that someone ripped out of the house.

“This is the first I recall in a while of actual piping ripped out of the house,” Bianchini said.

The $ 3,000 damage estimate includes materials and labor.

At a nearby scrap yard, Bianchini said he found copper piping and fittings that matched those missing from the Newfield Road home.

The investigation found a receipt from that transaction indicating that Grover had brought those items in for exchange, Bianchini said.

“They had a slip with his name on it and everything,” Bianchini said.

In general, Bianchini said that theft of copper and other metals that can be sold for scrap is becoming more prevalent.

“All over the state, people are going after copper pipe,” Bianchini said.

The maximum sentence for a Class C crime is five years. Tamara Getchell, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County District Attorney’s office, said conviction on two Class C charges arising from the same incident, as in Grover’s case, would typically result in concurrent sentences.