Brink’s drivers shocked by size of jewelry heist — stolen bling may be worth $100 million
The two drivers lingered in the darkness in the hours after their Brink’s big rig was burglarized at the Flying J Travel Center. They tried to make sense of the brazen, late-night jewelry heist.
“If this was me and I was going to do something like this, I’d try to stay in the shadows as much as possible,” theorized driver James Beaty.
The other driver, Tandy Motley, had another thought: “You know what worries me the most is they always want to blame the employee first.”
It was after 3 a.m. on July 11, and thieves had just made off with more than 20 large bags of jewelry, gems and other items that the Brink’s tractor-trailer had been transporting from the International Gem and Jewelry Show in San Mateo to the L.A. area. The heist occurred during a 27-minute window in which Beaty slumbered in the vehicle’s sleeper berth and Motley ate a meal at the Flying J, a sprawling truck stop just off Interstate 5’s sinuous Grapevine in Lebec, Calif.
At first, Beaty and Motley weren’t sure how much had been taken from the vehicle. But after one of the two L.A. County Sheriff’s Department deputies on the scene asked about the size of their load, Motley took an inventory of the cargo. And he said he counted only 49 of the 73 bags that had been placed on the vehicle before it departed.
“Holy s—,” said Beaty, 53. He told Motley to “double-check” the count, adding, “That’s a lot.”
It took just 27 minutes to steal tens of millions in jewelry and gemstones from a Brink’s trailer in Lebec, Calif.
The new details of the drivers’ actions after the heist — as well as the public disclosure of their names — come from a transcript of body-camera footage recorded by the deputies. It was included in a May legal filing made by lawyers representing 11 jewelry companies that were sued by Brink’s in New York court in August.
Among the revelations in the transcripts and other recent filings: Beaty said that before he and Motley left San Mateo, he told several colleagues about a man who watched him at the jewelry show, but no one followed up with him about the matter. He also said that Motley could have awakened him before heading off to eat without violating Department of Transportation regulations for commercial drivers’ off-duty time.
The company’s lawsuit has sought to limit any payout it could have to make to the jewelers. The complaint alleged that the stolen shipments had a declared total value of $8.7 million — much higher than a figure initially cited by Beaty, who told deputies the vehicle was transporting cargo worth $2.7 million.
It turns out the pilfered goods could be worth more than 10 times the amount cited by Brink’s.
The victimized jewelry companies have alleged in a lawsuit they filed against Brink’s and other parties that the merchandise was valued at about $100 million. The complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court about two weeks after the jewelers were sued in New York, alleged negligence and other claims.
“A few weeks after the theft, Brink’s raced to court to sue the victims, and they made a number of allegations that have been contradicted by evidence developed in the case,” said Gerald L. Kroll, attorney for the affected jewelers. “Brink’s has had all the information all along — we just didn’t have the information.”
The Times sent Brink’s several questions, which company spokeswoman Dana Callahan responded to via email. She said Brink’s deferred to law enforcement regarding the investigation of the heist, adding, “We look forward to answers that will bring the criminals to justice.”
The Sheriff’s Department, which is conducting the inquiry with the FBI, did not respond to requests for comment. Beaty and Motley also did not respond to interview requests.
Long before the value of the loot was contested in dueling lawsuits, the drivers hunkered down in the Flying J parking lot and tried to come to grips with what had only then just occurred. Motley, 44, was hung up on something unsettling that he’d noticed a day earlier at the San Mateo County Event Center, which hosted the jewelry show. “There was somebody kind of looking at me weird, kind of dogged me, staring right in the eyes, just sitting there, doors were open, as we were getting loaded,” he said. “It just felt weird.”
The Times previously reported that suspicious men were seen at the expo hall, including one sporting an earpiece and a surgical mask whom organizers removed from the premises. Two people familiar with the investigation of the heist have said that one of the men seen in or around the event center July 10 could have been involved in the crime.
Motley said that the man staring at him had a beard and drove a silver SUV.
“It’s like, why is this guy dogging me?” Motley wondered.
No ‘additional precautions’
Besides the body-cam transcript, the legal skirmishing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has produced other documents that reveal what until now has been closely held information about the heist.
In May, partial transcripts of depositions given by Motley and Beaty were filed with the court by the jewelers’ lawyers. (The depositions are heavily redacted and missing pages because the lawsuit is subject to a protective order.)
In his deposition, Motley discussed the bearded man in the SUV, telling an attorney for the jewelers that the person was “mad-dogging” him as he guarded the back of the big rig while it was being loaded.
When Kroll asked Motley if he told anyone at the jewelry show about the situation, the driver said he hadn’t because “it could have been anything,” and confirmed that he didn’t bring the episode up until after the crime occurred.
Beaty, on the other hand, said in his deposition that he had noticed “a gentleman that was staring” at him during the show, and reported the individual’s presence to Brandy Swanson, the event’s manager. Beaty also said that he told four Brink’s workers on-site about the man who watched him. “They acknowledged what I said and they said they would keep an eye out,” said Beaty. He added that he did not hear from those colleagues again regarding the issue.
When Kroll asked Beaty whether anyone at Brink’s had told him to take “additional precautions” during the drive to Southern California, Beaty replied, “No.”
Subscribers get exclusive access to this story
We’re offering L.A. Times subscribers special access to our best journalism. Thank you for your support.
Explore more Subscriber Exclusive content.
Asked about Beaty’s assertion, Callahan noted that the driver alerted the show’s security personnel about the suspicious person. She added that in a deposition Swanson gave in the case, she said that she directed security to order “suspicious persons out of the parking lot and out of the area.”
The Times has reported that the show’s organizers warned jewelers at the conclusion of the fair that “suspicious” people were outside the facility. Such messages are common at the event, but Swanson told The Times in November that the July 10 warning had “extra urgency,” given what had transpired that day. At the time, Callahan said that the company was “not aware of any reports of suspicious activity from the show organizer at the San Mateo show.”
But in Swanson’s deposition, she said that after becoming aware of men on-site whose presence was questionable, she alerted Brink’s workers at the venue. She said the warning she delivered to two of them was met with a one-word response: “Okay.”
“The guys standing behind them that were all armed or they [were] their crew that picks it up — they just looked at me,” Swanson said. “I’m, like — they didn’t care.”
The Brink’s truck heist in Lebec has upended the tight-knit community of trade show jewelers. Its victims say the big rig burglary has left their businesses in shambles.
Callahan said that Swanson’s testimony did not indicate she saw suspicious people “in the vicinity of” the Brink’s big rig, and that the event manager noted that the individuals she spotted left the show before company personnel started loading the vehicle. Callahan added that in another jewelry show executive’s deposition, he said that warnings at the event have increased in recent years.
“We defer to law enforcement on whether there is any connection between a routine warning to jewelers at the San Mateo show and a theft that occurred” nearly 300 miles away, Callahan said.
Much has been made in media reports of the heist occurring while Beaty slept inside the vehicle. In its lawsuit, Brink’s said that the driver had bedded down in compliance with Department of Transportation regulations. It also said that when Motley went to get food following their 2:05 a.m. arrival at the Flying J, he left Beaty to slumber per those rules. They dictate that when commercial truck drivers enter a sleeper berth, time spent there cannot be interrupted if it is to count toward the 10 hours of required off-duty time per day.
Beaty’s deposition, however, calls into question Motley’s decision to leave his colleague asleep. Beaty said that he went to sleep at 3:39 p.m. on July 10, which meant that he hit the 10-hour mark at 1:39 a.m. the next day. Thus, when Motley pulled into the Flying J at 2:05 a.m., he could have awakened his co-driver before leaving the vehicle to get a meal.
“You know if you weren’t asleep, you would have been standing outside according to regulations, correct?” Kroll asked Beaty.
“I could have been, yes,” Beaty replied.
Asked about this testimony, Callahan said, “Our drivers followed DOT regulations.”
She added that there “are likely errors throughout” the depositions in the case but said it “would be very time-consuming to identify each error.”
A new chronology
Ever since the Brink’s heist began making headlines last July, a curious element of the story perplexed observers: the improbably swift timeline of the episode described by Brink’s in its lawsuit and in Sheriff’s Department documents.
The Times has reported that a Sheriff’s Department incident report said that both drivers told a deputy that their vehicle left San Mateo at about 12:01 a.m. — a detail also noted by Brink’s in its lawsuit.
That would mean that the drivers made the roughly 298-mile, late-night trek from San Mateo to the Flying J in about 2 hours, 4 minutes. To traverse that distance so quickly, the vehicle would have had to drive at speeds upward of 140 mph.
The recent legal filings appear to disclose the actual chronology of the drivers’ doomed journey.
During their conversation with the deputies, Motley and Beaty explained that they’d picked up the cargo “six hours” from Lebec. And in his deposition, Motley said the vehicle left San Mateo at about 8:25 p.m. on July 10. A departure at that time would have allowed the tractor-trailer to drive at a reasonable clip and arrive at the Flying J at 2:05 a.m. the next day.
Callahan noted that the chronology described in her company’s lawsuit is consistent with and reflects the Sheriff’s Department’s incident report.
The body-cam transcript also shed some light on the question of whether video of the heist exists. The Times reported in August that Sheriff’s Department investigators had footage related to the incident, but nothing is known about its content.
According to the transcript, Deputy Jeremy Viger asked the drivers if they had inquired with workers at the Flying J about the presence of cameras at the tractor-trailer lot. “Just the fuel aisle only,” Beaty replied.
“That’s crazy,” Viger said.
The Flying J is operated by Pilot Corp., which also is a defendant in the lawsuit brought by the jewelers. A spokesperson for the Knoxville, Tenn., company said it could not comment because “this matter is pending litigation.”
‘Out of earshot’
As the conversation with the deputies progressed, the Brink’s drivers offered an increasingly detailed accounting of the pricey load they’d been transporting.
At one point, Beaty said: “Some of those obsidian rocks and opals are worth millions by themselves just for one stone.”
When they weren’t fielding questions from the deputies, the drivers speculated on the nature of the heist and who might have done it.
“I’m pretty sure we were followed from the show where we got loaded,” said Motley, though he noted that he “didn’t pick up on” being tailed.
The Times reported in November that investigators believe that the thieves tracked the big rig from San Mateo using multiple vehicles, according to two people with knowledge of the inquiry. The criminals waited for an opportune moment to break into the tractor-trailer and may have not known how big a haul awaited them, the sources said.
Jewelers at the International Gem and Jewelry Show on July 10 were warned of suspicious people loitering outside — hours before thieves hit a Brink’s truck in what might be one of the biggest jewel heists ever.
During the drivers’ talk with the deputies, an unidentified man from a neighboring truck weighed in to say he hadn’t seen anything of note while at the truck stop. But there was something he wanted to share.
“I heard some ruckus earlier like there was — it was a foreign language, it wasn’t Spanish because I know a lot of Spanish,” he said. “It wasn’t that.”
Near the end of the transcript, Deputy David Swigart received a telephone call from a lieutenant. After he filled her in on what had transpired, he stepped away from the drivers — making sure he was “out of earshot” — so that he could field a question from the higher-ranking officer.
“So what’s your take on this?” she asked the deputy. “Do you think they were totally victimized? I mean —”
Swigart replied: “So ... I’m of the opinion and so is my partner here —”
“End of recording,” the next and final line of the transcript said.
More to Read
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
