Well, here I am draggin' up old-news again....
Just wonderin' how it all turned out, and thought I'd relate a similar story that might shed some light (or not)…
When I worked for the state I was leaving work one evening after my shift and as I walked by the maintenance dept dumpster out in the parking lot I saw some old used wire bundles and a couple of rusty steel truck wheels that looked good to me so I picked 'em up and threw 'em in the trunk and drove home.
Next week I was called in on the carpet and told that was not allowed... that one of the mechanics saw me retrieve it from the dumpster and that it is state trash and still belonged to the state and that I should bring it all back or face unpleasant actions. So, next day I brought it all back and, thinking I should get a witness, asked one of the co-workers to sign a statement he saw me put them back into the dumpster.
A year later I noticed an engine being removed from a Dept Public Safety airplane because it was timed-out and a new engine being installed. I happened to have been in the maintenance (mx) hangar the previous month when a mechanic had installed brand new spark plugs in that engine. (6-cyl engine uses 12 spark plugs costing $25/ea.)
When the old engine was seen by me on the shipping dock next day for the freight company pick-up I noticed it had a set of 12 old rusty spark plugs in it instead of the recently new ones.
The new engine which was installed CAME complete with new ignition harness and plugs from the factory.... so... what happened to the almost new spark plugs in that timed-out engine? Were they retained by the state to be installed in the future?
Well, it's a strange thing, but one of the mechanics happened to own a personal airplane in a partnership with two other guys and they kept it at a private airport north of town. Just so happens, a buddy and I landed at that airport and as we taxied up for fuel we observed the mech's partner installing slightly USED plugs in their airplane. Bein' a nosey bastard I wandered over and asked how much those plugs cost and the ignorant mech's partner actually said he and the other partner had picked up 2/3rds the price of them because their partner (who the speaker had no idea I worked with at the state) had come up with some "surplus" parts that were discounted.
Peanut... I wonder if the "parrish president" and his buddy watchman at the dump aren't a little protective of the "public dump" for selfish reasons...?
(In the case I mentioned... it worked out in the end. The mech was fired for falsifying his application. Don't know if that's the whole story... don't know who told on him.)