NJ man with $1M stolen construction gear was ex-worker — police

An unemployed Morris County man has been accused of stowing more than a million dollars’ worth of stolen construction equipment and trying to resell it, along with keeping a cache of illegal guns and ammunition.

On Tuesday, 32-year-old Nicholas DeMaio, of Wharton, was arrested and charged with second-degree counts of receiving stolen property; fencing and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office had launched a six-month investigation into burglaries and thefts from multiple construction sites in North Jersey and honed in on DeMaio, according to Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella.

A search carried out on Tuesday at a Sussex County rental property held by DeMaio turned up a bulldozer, excavator, backhoe, compressor, a dump truck, and other heavy construction equipment, at least one of which had been stolen from J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, according to a criminal complaint.

DeMaio was a former employee of at least one of the sites stolen from and had listed the equipment in an online marketplace, according to an affidavit of probable cause, which did not give further details.

At the same Branchville property along George Hill Road, law enforcement recovered several illegal guns, eight large capacity magazines, four silencers and six cartridges of hollow nose ammunition, according to the complaint. Three cell phones were seized in the case as well.

DeMaio also faces fourth-degree counts of possession of high capacity magazines; possession of hollow point ammunition and possession of prohibited weapons and devices.

The multi-county investigation not only involved the prosecutor’s office, but also State Police and the police departments in Ridgefield, Clifton and Wharton, Musella said.