Florida man charged with grand larceny

Florida — Philip Hamling runs his business personally. Every payday, he himself hands out paychecks to 32 employs at ZIRCAR Ceramics, Inc., a leader in high-temperature fibrous ceramic materials used for heating and insulation products. The business has been in Florida since 1974. He knows each employee in this small, family-like atmosphere. Which is why the rumblings he was hearing in December seemed so unbelievable. “I was overseas and heard murmurs from our production department that tooling necessary for our business was not here,” said Hamling. “I also heard it from our maintenance department.” Everything that was missing was metal, said Hamling. “So I thought, where would someone go to sell metal?” He hit the jackpot on his first phone call. “I called the first scrap yard listed in the phone book, the one in New Hampton,” he said. “The guy said ‘I think I’ve got your stuff.’” Much of the metal was pretty unique, including a three-foot wide and eight-foot long sheet of brass. “The guy was able to recognize our equipment from the descriptions,” Hamling said. “I went over there and started looking through his receipt book and found three tickets with my truck’s license numbers within two weeks.” One of those receipts was from Dec. 30, the company’s paid New Year’s holiday. Only one employee worked that day, Hamling said. In January, Hamling and two other ZIRCAR employees confronted Rich Kirschke, 33, of the Village of Florida, a three-year employee of the company. Hamling said Kirschke first denied the charges, but later “fessed up” when told about the Dec. 30 receipt from the scrap yard and that he was the only employee working that day. Hamling fired Kirschke and called the Village of Florida police. Kirschke turned himself into the police two days later, according to Hamling. He has been charged with grand larceny. A conviction carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison, although Orange County Assistant District Attorney Neil Haberman said that more likely, though, Kirschke will be offered a plea bargain. Kirschke, who could not be reached for this article, is scheduled to appear in Village of Florida court on Feb. 16. Whatever the circumstances, Hamling said he is out much more than money and equipment. “After making a list of what I knew was missing, I calculated it to be about $10,000 worth of material,” said Hamling. “I went to metal vendors about replacing the materials and it looks like it will cost about $40,000 to replace it all.” Insurance is likely to cover that cost. Something else, however, was lost. “This definitely boogers up the works,” Hamling said. “I believe I won’t be as trusting as before, but I don’t want to do that. I want to get done with this and get back to the business of doing business.”