MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Two men are accused of breaking into a Burnsville restaurant to steal money and meat last week, according to charges filed Monday in Dakota County Court.
Tyler Cole Stanford and Keith Michael Miller, both 27, were each charged with third-degree burglary in connection with the incident, which happened last Thursday.
According to the charges, Burnsville Police were called to a restaurant at about 2:53 a.m. on July 11 on a report of an intrusion alarm. When authorities arrived, the front door and inner front door were both unlocked and there was an open ceiling tile in a storage closet. The roof hatch inside a garbage bay was wide open also.
Police also discovered the door to an exterior safe opened as well as an opened interior safe door inside the employee office room. Authorities contacted the owners, who told them they had an alarm earlier that night that was canceled. A second alarm sounded at about 2:52 a.m. for the front door and dining area. According the complaint, surveillance video shows two white men in their 20s entering the restaurant at about 12:58 a.m. They were later identified as Stanford and Miller.
The restaurant owners told police their safe had been tampered with and more than $1,750 in cash and checks was missing. They also noticed a rib eye valued at $120 and a New York Strip loin valued at $80 were both missing.
Later that morning, police were notified that the suspects were staying at a nearby hotel, where employees there said three men entered the hotel in a rushed pace. They were able to track the men to a hotel room, where as many as four men were staying and the meat that had been stolen was in plain view. All four were taken into custody, the complaint states.
In a search of the room, police found two hams, cash, beef tenderloin, two rib roasts and several other items. Police tried to speak with Miller, who invoked his right to remain silent. One of the other men told police he wasn’t going to lie and that Stanford and Miller had committed the crime. The man stated Stanford and Miller entered their hotel room, were out of breath and admitted to the crime. The man also said he thought it was “ridiculous how he was 18 years old and he had to snitch on Miller and Stanford because they weren’t man enough to admit to the crime they committed,” according to the complaint.
If convicted, each faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
