Self-Storage Manager Pleads Guilty to Participating in Theft Ring at Beaumont, TX, Facility
Self-storage manager Jennifer Moss Autrey was sentenced to conditional probation and ordered to pay restitution for her role in a string of thefts at Millennium Self Storage in Beaumont, Texas. Autrey pleaded guilty to engaging in organized criminal activity in which she routinely alerted cohort Cory Wayne Dreymala over a six-month period when tenants had moved potentially valuable belongings into units at the 7th Street facility. Dreymala also pleaded guilty to the same charge and received a five-year sentence, according to the source.
April 18, 2017
Self-storage manager Jennifer Moss Autrey was sentenced to conditional probation and ordered to pay restitution for her role in a string of thefts at Millennium Self Storage in Beaumont, Texas. Autrey pleaded guilty to engaging in organized criminal activity in which she routinely alerted cohort Cory Wayne Dreymala over a six-month period when tenants had moved potentially valuable belongings into units at the 7th Street facility. Dreymala also pleaded guilty to the same charge and received a five-year sentence, according to the source.
Dreymala, 40, was first arrested in connection to the case in December 2015 after he was reportedly caught on video breaking into units at the storage facility. Police continued to receive reports of burglarized units after Dreymala was freed on bond, but the security cameras at the property were disabled in those instances, the source reported.
Investigators determined Autrey, 46, enabled the burglaries by notifying Dreymala when she observed tenants storing potentially valuable goods. Dreymala, potentially assisted by others, would then break into the units and haul off valuables in the facility’s moving truck, detective Tina Lewallen told the source.
“[Dreymala] doesn’t have a vehicle,” Lewallen said. “He would use the [storage facility’s] truck, load it up, drive it to a vacant lot, roll up the back of the truck and literally sell right out of the truck.”
Dreymala was also involved in selling antique furniture online, according to Lewallen.
In a statement to the source last year, Dreymala maintained he was homeless and paid by Autrey under the table to help clean up the facility. He said Autrey told him the units from which he took goods were abandoned and asked him to clean them out.
The burglars broke into the spaces near the tops of the units but had to cut the locks off the doors to remove large items like refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers, according to Lewallen. When Dreymala was arrested a second time, he was in possession of a “large quantity” of items stolen from the self-storage facility, Robert Scott, assistant district attorney, told the source.
Dreymala faced up to 10 years of incarceration for the third-degree felony charge. Autrey was given probation by Judge Larry Gist on condition she pay restitution to the victims. The value of the stolen goods is estimated in the six figures, according to the source.
A third person, Anders Jensen, was arrested in connection with the theft ring but had his case dismissed.
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