An informant, police tracking of vehicles and an undercover officer helped lead to five people who are now charged with copper wire theft from St. Paul streetlights with an estimated repair cost to the city of more than $200,000, according to recently filed criminal complaints.

In another case charged Friday, St. Paul police discovered 45 damaged streetlights with an estimated repair cost of $225,000.

St. Paul spent $1.2 million last year on repair and replacement due to wire theft and accompanying damage to streetlights and traffic signals, compared with $250,000 in 2019, according to the city. Electric car chargers, window air-conditioning systems and other infrastructure has also been targeted.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office made accusations against six St. Paul residents in charges filed Friday. The criminal complaints give the following information from prosecutors:

Police received information in January from an informant that Kyaw Klay, 40, organized a crew who went out and damaged streetlights, removing wire from them. An attorney for Kyaw Klay couldn’t be reached Tuesday.

Kyaw Klay and Paw Hkee La, 21, then sold the wire to recycling facilities, including Dem-Con Metal Recycling in Blaine, the informant said.

Dem-Con paid about $3 per pound for copper wiring that had been removed from its insulation and $2 per pound for such wiring that was stamped with “City of St. Paul Public Works” on its insulation.

Dem-Con Metal Recycling is part of the scrap alert network “and we take it very seriously,” said Erik Schuck, the company’s chief operating officer, on Tuesday. “In particular, we were working with the authorities … on this and we are glad to see that these individuals have been apprehended.”

Officers conducted surveillance and saw Kyaw Klay and two others went to Dem-Con on Feb. 5 and sold 127 pounds of copper for $387.

“Kyaw Klay was so familiar to employees at Dem-Con that they no longer asked him for his identification when he brought copper in to sell to them,” the complaint said. State law specifies that scrap metal dealers must make a record of every purchase of scrap metal, which includes getting a copy of the seller’s ID.

Schuck said he couldn’t comment on specific allegations in the complaint.

Kyaw Klay completed 31 transactions with Dem-Con between Nov. 10 and Jan. 15, receiving $12,169 in total.

Undercover officer, vehicle tracking

An undercover officer made arrangements for Kyaw Klay to sell “stolen” copper wire to Dem-Con on his behalf, with the officer telling the man he would get half the money from the sale. The officer was provided with copper wire from the department’s property room that had “City of St. Paul Public Works” stamped on its insulation.

Kyaw Klay and Paw Hkee La (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

The officer went with Kyaw Klay and Paw La on Feb. 7 to Dem-Con. An employee accepted stripped copper wires that Kyaw Klay brought and the undercover officer’s wire marked with “City of St. Paul,” and Kyaw Klay wasn’t asked to show his ID.

The informant previously told police that Kyaw Klay collected the stolen wire in a Toyota Camry and police obtained a warrant to put a tracking device on the car. On Feb. 16 about 12:45 a.m., officers tracked the car to the area of Mississippi River Boulevard and Dayton Avenue.

Officers on surveillance saw several people cutting wire from streetlights on the Marshall Avenue-Lake Street Bridge and later from streetlights near Marshall Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard. About 25 streetlights were found damaged, with wires cut and removed, in the area of the Marshall Avenue-Lake Street Bridge. The estimate to repair them is about $125,000.

Eh Tha Blay and Aye Mae (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Police stopped the Toyota Camry and identified Kyaw Klay as the driver and Paw La as the front seat passenger. Eh Tha Blay, 25, and Aye Mae, 42, were the backseat passengers.

Police obtained another tracker warrant for a different Toyota Camry. Officers saw that car parked near the Highland Aquatic Center at 12:20 a.m. Feb. 23 and found 17 damaged streetlights around the pool with the wire cut from them. It’s an estimated $85,000 to repair those lights.

Nay Thar (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Police pulled over the Camry, and identified the driver as Nay Thar, 36, and the passenger as Eh Tha Blay, 25.

There was cut copper wire at Eh Blay’s feet. Police arrested the pair and Eh Blay told investigators he makes money by following friends who pull copper wire from light poles. He said no one in the car stole wire that night and he had tools because he fixes vehicles.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Eh Blay, Kyaw Klay, Paw La, Aye Mae and Nay Thar on Friday with aiding and abetting energy or telecom damage, first-degree criminal damage to property and possession of burglary of theft tools.

Warner Road lights

Also charged Friday with the same offenses was Gay Gay, 44. Officers conducting surveillance on Feb. 23 saw Gay Gay walking by the Mississippi River, carrying a large bag and stopping near inoperable streetlights, according to the complaint against him.

Gay Gay (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Police found him parked in Lower Landing Park on Warner Road at 2:25 a.m. There was a large amount of cut copper wire in the vehicle, the complaint said.

Investigators found more than 45 streetlights along Warner Road had fresh damage and copper wire stripped from them. It’s an estimated $225,000 to repair them.

Five of the six people, with the exception of Aye Mae, have been charged with similar offenses this year.

Two St. Paul legislators are sponsoring bills that would require anyone selling copper metal to have a state-issued license. Construction contractors, people who work in residential trades and other licensed workers would continue to be allowed to sell copper and wouldn’t need a separate license. The bills would still allow residents and businesses to recycle copper materials with scrap metal companies for free.

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Madison Equities, believed to be the largest property owner in downtown St. Paul, has put its entire downtown portfolio up for sale, as well as the Handsome Hog restaurant on Selby Avenue.

Spanning 1.6 million square feet, the 10 properties include six of the oldest and most prominent commercial buildings in the capital city, including the iconic First National Bank Building, the Alliance Center and the U.S. Bank Center, as well as two downtown parking ramps.

“That is the sum total of their whole portfolio of downtown office buildings,” said Steve Lysen, a broker with CBRE, which is soliciting all-cash offers for the properties without a formal asking price but “well below replacement cost,” according to marketing materials.

“The preference is to sell it to one buyer,” Lysen said. “That may or may not be possible. We may have to look at breaking it up. We just started the process, so we’ll see. If we had a full offer that worked for us, that would be the preference.”

Crockarell left large property holdings

Madison Equities had been led for decades by Jim Crockarell, a sometimes cantankerous real estate developer whose love of old downtown buildings was often overshadowed by his clashes with City Hall, labor interests, lenders and even tenants. Crockarell died in January at the age of 79, leaving his wife Rosemary Kortgard in charge of a large swathe of the capital city’s office market, including commercial properties around Mears Park in Lowertown.

Kortgard has shown no interest in running the real estate holdings herself.

“She just wants to be on her way,” said Lysen, who said the hope is that a single buyer comes forward with an interest in filling the properties as best as they can despite a slump in the downtown office market.

“Part of the preference for selling it to one buyer would be to have a cohesive plan,” he said. “There’s a hotel that is approved and ready to be built in the Park Square Court building. Our hope is that people do things that add value. If we sell it to individual users, they might lease it up to 25% and it just sort of stagnates. That’s not good for the city. That’s not good for anybody.”

The properties

The properties include: the First National Bank Building on Minnesota Street, the Alliance Center on Fifth Street, 375 Jackson Square, U.S. Bank Center on Fifth Street, the Empire Building/Endicott Arcade on Robert Street, the Park Square Court building on Sibley Street, the Stadium Ramp on Sixth Street, the Capital City Ramp on Fourth Street, the building occupied by the Handsome Hog restaurant at 173 Western Ave. N. and the adjoining surface parking lot at 401 Selby Ave.

Occupancies range from nothing at all in the Park Square Court and Empire Building to 57% at the U.S. Bank Center, which is losing nine floors of tenancy when U.S. Bank’s office lease expires in October.

The Alliance Center and First National Bank buildings are 44% occupied, according to CBRE’s 49-page offering memorandum.

“Buyers have the ability to add value and improve financial returns by increasing occupancy through leasing and repositioning the properties through redevelopment,” reads the marketing materials. “The portfolio offers unprecedented scale. The owner is and subsequent buyer will be the largest land owner in Downtown St. Paul.”

The portfolio is being offered without a formal asking price, according to the marketing materials, and “although a call for offers and bid due date may be set at a later date, ownership reserves the right to respond to offers as they are received. Buyers are encouraged to make offers on an all cash basis on the entire portfolio, sub-portfolios or individual properties.”

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With just weeks left in the legislative session, a roughly $1 billion public infrastructure borrowing proposal is seeing discussion at the Minnesota Capitol. But whether the bill will cross the finish line in time is unclear.

A capital investment proposal from DFL House lawmakers calls for hundreds of millions for universities and colleges, prisons, transportation and improvements at the state Capitol.

In even-numbered years borrowing for projects like those is typically one of the top orders of business at the Legislature. But with just weeks left of session and limited Republican appetite for more borrowing, it’s unclear how many projects will get funding, or if the bill will pass.

Minority Republicans want a smaller bonding bill, and since borrowing needs a supermajority the DFL will need their support. Republicans have not yet put forward a bonding proposal of their own.

What’s in the House DFL bonding bill?

As it stands, most of the $980 million bonding bill is for statewide infrastructure projects. Another $39 million or so in a separate but related bill is from the general fund. It’s near the size of the bonding proposal Gov. Tim Walz pitched in January.

A little more than $300 million is set aside for local projects in lawmakers’ districts, and would be split up as the bonding proposal moves forward.

House lawmakers have been holding hearings on the proposal this week and plan to hold a committee vote on Wednesday.

Top spending areas include:

• $114 million for improvements at state prisons.

• $64 million for asset preservation at both the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.

• $48 million for public safety, with most going to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension regional office and crime lab in Mankato.

• $45.7 million for transportation, $37.7 million of which will go to major local bridge replacement and rehabilitation.

• $31 million for improvements at the State Capitol, including an upgraded tunnel to the state office building currently under renovation for half a billion dollars.

• $28.9 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs, including $16 million for renovations of the Minneapolis Veterans Home.

Will it get through?

While DFLers control the Senate, House and the governor’s office, they need a three-fifths supermajority in both chambers to pass borrowing bills – meaning they’ll need GOP backing.

“House Republicans remain open to a bonding bill but the content matters,” Minority Leader Lisa Demuth said in a statement, adding that her caucus wants to be responsible with borrowing after significantly grew spending last year.

During last year’s session, Walz and the DFL majorities in control of state government passed significant legislation, including a new $72 billion two-year budget that grew spending by about 40%.

Bonding is one of the few bargaining tools minority Republicans have with the majority DFL. Last year, Republicans got the DFL to support $300 million in aid for struggling nursing homes in exchange for their support on a $2.6 billion infrastructure bill that included $1.5 billion in borrowing.

So with Republicans already signaling they’re not interested in significant new borrowing, the lead House DFL representative on bonding is acknowledging the bill might have to shrink to move forward.

“As we move forward with a smaller target to reach consensus, I think that there will be further disappointment with some of the items that are in here that may have to be cut,” said House Capital Investment Committee Chair Fue Lee, DFL-Minneapolis.

A tighter bill this year comes after lawmakers passed a $2.6 billion bonding package in the 2023 session. Then, the state had a $18 billion budget surplus, allowing bigger, bolder proposals to move forward.

Now, with the state facing a budget shortfall in the next four years if lawmakers don’t keep spending to a minimum, that’s not going to be the case.

“This is a very difficult process, it was a hard process last year when we were basically raining money,” said Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, the lead Republican on the Capital Investment Committee.

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A St. Paul man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his wife at the couple’s home in 2021, telling police at the time he became angry when she didn’t take his concerns over their daughter seriously.

Johnny Ray Aldridge, 49, entered the plea Monday to second-degree intentional murder of 41-year-old Caitlin Aldridge. A trial was set to begin that day in Ramsey County District Court.

As part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence at the low end of state guidelines, which carry a minimum of nearly 21 years in prison. His attorneys can argue for a downward departure at sentencing, which is scheduled for June 28.

Aldridge has been civilly committed as mentally ill since 2022 and is currently at Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center, according to court records. He was found to be competent to stand trial in March 2023.

A call to his public defender for comment was not returned Tuesday.

Caitlin Aldridge grew up on St. Paul’s West Side and graduated from Cretin-Derham Hall in 1998 and University of Minnesota-Morris four years later, her obituary says. She worked on the youth programs team at the YWCA of Minneapolis, where she “built lasting friendships with her colleagues and young people.”

“Caitlin, known to most as Casey, was quietly tenacious, dedicated and deeply kind,” her obituary says.

Unfounded concerns

Johnny Aldridge went to the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center about 3 a.m. Sept. 28, 2021, and called 911, saying that he had killed his wife at their home in the 30 block of Winnipeg Avenue on St. Paul’s North End, according to the criminal complaint. Officers took him into custody without incident.

They found a firearm in his vehicle’s console, and Aldridge told officers it was the gun he used to shoot his wife of 11 years.

Officers found Caitlin Aldridge dead in an upstairs bedroom of the home. She had a gunshot wound to her head.

The couple’s 13-year-old daughter was home, but had slept through the incident. Police led her out of the home, shielding her from the crime scene.

Throughout interviews, Johnny Aldridge appeared to be obsessed with claims that people were trying to harm his daughter, police said. He believed his wife was somehow involved.

Johnny Ray Aldridge (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Aldridge told police that when he expressed his concerns to his wife, she laughed.

His wife’s “response angered Aldridge so much he shot her once in the back of the head with the gun he kept beneath his pillow,” the complaint states.

Investigators learned that Aldridge’s concerns over their daughter were unfounded.

The daughter told police Aldridge had PTSD and hadn’t been himself since he had been shot in the hand in June. He and a friend reported they were sitting in Aldridge’s garage when they saw someone shooting out the window of a passing vehicle, according to a police report. It appeared that a neighbor’s house was possibly the target, police said.

After that, he began carrying a gun, acting scared and leaving home for periods of time. He left twice during the summer, the complaint states. The daughter said he would get mad easily and that it had been hard on her mother because they had been fighting over small things the past few days, the complaint states.

Police records show Aldridge had called 911 twice on July 24 with unfounded emergencies, and an operator indicated at the time that he was possibly “a person in crisis.” He called saying he thought his wife was tracking his phone and that she was with someone who was trying to kill him. He called later, saying he believed someone might be inside the house who had kidnapped his wife.

Court records show Johnny Aldridge has been convicted of traffic violations, including eight for driving with a suspended or revoked license.

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