BOSTON -- The two men accused of stealing a more than $500,000 in historic cast iron from Boston's Longfellow Bridge and selling it for scrap metal will return to court next month after an expected plea deal could not be worked out on Wednesday.

Historic Bridge Theft Plea Deal Falls Apart

State workers Richard Stewart, of Saugus, and Joe Falzone, of Nashua, N.H., pleaded not guilty in the fall of 2008 to four counts each of receiving stolen property over $250. Stewart was also charged with one count of destruction of a historical monument, which by statute requires reimbursement to the commonwealth for the damage incurred.

The men had planned to plead guilty Wednesday, but the prosecution said it still wanted the pair to serve three to five years in jail. The parties will return to court on Sept. 15.

The iron work was being stored in a Stoneham Department of Conservation and Recreation facility while the bridge was repaired.

In September 2007, several large cast iron pieces of the historic Longfellow Bridge, which connects Cambridge to Boston, were removed as part of a long term rebuilding of the bridge. The removed pieces, measuring in total length approximately 3,467 linear feet, called decorative "coping," were built specifically for that bridge.

Each individual section was approximately 7-feet long by 2-feet wide and weighs 350 pounds. They were to be refurbished and put back up when the bridge repair reaches completion in 2012. The coping, removed during a week long period in September 2007, was transferred to the DCR yard in Stoneham for safekeeping until its restoration. The pieces were stacked approximately 15 high along a fence within the Stoneham yard.

In early September 2008, a DCR employee noticed that a large portion of the stacked coping was missing. DCR conducted a check, which revealed that approximately two-thirds of the removed coping, or 2,347 linear feet, was missing. DCR estimates this to be approximately 357 individual sections weighing approximately 100,000 pounds. According to officials, the estimated cost to reconstruct or replace the coping would be somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000.

State police conducted an investigation that included interviews with DCR employees, analysis of video surveillance, analysis by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services and other investigative techniques.

Based on that investigation, it was determined that a dump truck belonging to DCR, normally used at the Cambridge location, had been observed at the Stoneham yard on multiple occasions. That truck was being utilized by both Stewart and/or Falzone.

It is alleged that Stewart and Falzone, on numerous weekend dates in July and August, using their access to the DCR Stoneham facility while also utilizing a DCR truck and bobcat, removed the decorative coping and brought the materials to a scrap metal yard in Everett.

The men are accused of selling the metal to the scrap yard for $12,000.