CLEARFIELD, Pa. — A Philipsburg man charged with felony theft for loading a truck with over $8,000 worth of items from a Chester Hill apartment pleaded guilty Tuesday.
Police said Raymond David Castro III, 45, was living in the residence while it was being remodeled. The property owner reported that Castro parked a U-Haul rental truck in front of the apartment and began loading it with material from the home in August 2025.
During sentencing court on Tuesday, defense attorney Chris Pentz noted that the probation office had recommended a state prison sentence for Castro. Pentz asked President Judge Paul E. Cherry to impose a county jail sentence instead, noting that Castro had already served more than the four-month minimum required by his plea agreement.
First Assistant District Attorney F. Cortez “Chip” Bell III confirmed to Cherry that Castro had served his minimum time.
Cherry sentenced Castro to four months to two years less one day in the county jail, with three years of concurrent probation. Castro was also ordered to pay $8,025 in restitution.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Castro removed nine pieces of 12-foot trim, tools, a camera, a drill, flooring tools, a nailer, floor pulls, five boxes of hardwood, a box of records, copper tubes, copper tees, paint, and a box of lighting from the apartment.
On Oct. 27, investigators spoke with a neighbor who reported seeing Castro and a woman loading items into the truck at night, though she could not see everything they were moving. In November, the owner reported that a woman had rented the truck from a friend of his using a fraudulent credit card. The truck was kept for an extra day, and the credit card was subsequently canceled.
When police questioned the truck owner, he reported he had been driving around searching for the vehicle because it had not been returned. He eventually located it at a storage facility in Bigler. The storage facility owner told investigators that the same woman who rented the storage unit had rented the truck and provided police with her contact information.
Another witness told police that the woman was renting a Philipsburg apartment from him. Castro, who was staying with her, reportedly tried to sell the landlord some flooring, claiming it was left over from a construction job. The landlord declined to buy the flooring but agreed to credit $500 toward their apartment security deposit if Castro installed the flooring in the unit, according to the report.
