Electrician at MSP Airport Accused of Stealing Copper Wire from Contractors
A Bloomington man is accused of stealing at least $125,000 worth of copper wire from contractors doing work at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where he was employed as an electrician.
Kipp Baldwin, 59, was charged Tuesday with one count of theft by swindle, according to a criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.
Baldwin, who has worked for the Metropolitan Airports Commission for 20 years, is scheduled to make his first appearance before a judge on April 2.
Acting on a tip that Baldwin was stealing copper wire from MSP, officers with the Airport Police Department began investigating him in October, according to the criminal complaint against Baldwin.
Although he worked Monday through Friday, surveillance footage showed Baldwin using his ID badge on Sunday, Oct. 13, to gain access to a construction area at the airport, where a company called Hunt Electric Corp. was one of several contractors doing work, the complaint said.
Baldwin could be seen in the video donning a hard hat and an orange vest bearing the name “Hunt” on the back as he entered the construction area, according to the complaint. He then allegedly carried a spool of wire out of the building to an area where his truck was parked.
Investigators used data from Baldwin’s airport ID badge to determine that, between October 2018 and November 2019, he had accessed airport facilities on 58 days that he was not scheduled to work, the complaint said.
On Oct. 31, investigators placed copper wire marked with theft-detection powder in bins at the airport belonging to Hunt Electric. The marked wire later turned up at the United Milwaukee scrap yard in Burnsville, where records showed that Baldwin had sold the company copper scrap on more than 70 occasions and received payments totaling $126,737.
During an interview with investigators, Baldwin allegedly admitted to occasionally taking copper “discards” worth about $50,000 from construction areas at the airport.
A search of Baldwin’s home turned up several boxes of copper wire — including some that was marked with theft-detection powder — a yellow Minneapolis Public Works jacket and a yellow Premier Electric Corp. jacket, the complaint said.
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