Gustavo Chavez, Lloyd Jorgenson, Paul Lambert, and Melinda Stewart, of Sierra Vista, have been charged in connection with the theft of donations from the Toys for Tots Foundation. Members of the group were indicted on multiple charges including: Burglary, Theft, Trafficking in Stolen Property, Conspiracy, and Illegally Conducting an Enterprise.
According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Marine Corps League, Thunder Mountain Detachment, which officially manages the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation in Sierra Vista, Arizona, received a large toy car donation from the estate of James Robert Evans in early 2016. Evans began collecting toy cars as a child in the 1960s, and by the time of his death, had amassed a collection of thousands.
Evans’ estate donated over 100 military-style footlockers filled with toy cars and other memorabilia. The collection was so large that the Toys for Tots Foundation stored the footlockers in multiple storage units across Cochise County.
Prosecutors allege that around May 2017, Jorgenson took at least 42 of the military-style footlockers filled with thousands of toy cars in original packaging from a storage unit in Hereford, Arizona. Between May 2017, and January 2019, Jorgenson, Lambert, Chavez, and Stewart purportedly worked together to conceal, transport, broker, and sell the footlockers and their contents.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has recovered 42 footlockers and their contents, but additional footlockers containing part of the toy car collection may not have been recovered.