Sprague — Three people have now been arrested and charged with stealing more than $200,000 worth of copper wire from the former Fusion Paperboard plant, with a warrant out for one more arrest.

Police have spent a year investigating "numerous burglaries" at the 130 Inland Road plant, which was foreclosed on in 2017 and inherited by the town of Sprague. What they found were people stealing wire, and selling it mostly to Calamari Recycling Co. in Essex, to afford their heroin addictions.

Frank Stahlinski, 48, of Baltic turned himself in to police the morning of Nov. 23 and was charged with third-degree burglary and first-degree larceny.

His girlfriend at the time of the thefts, Norwich resident Sarah Jolly, 32, was arrested Wednesday and charged with being an accessory to third-degree burglary and first-degree larceny.

Jeffery Askew, 33, of New London was arrested Thursday and charged with third-degree burglary and first-degree larceny. Connecticut State Police said there is also a warrant out for the arrest of Jake Pendergast, 28.

Pendergast told police that he knew Askew from a rehabilitation center and that Jolly is his cousin, according to the sworn affidavit from Sprague Resident Trooper Brian Sumner in the arrest warrant for Jolly.

State police arrested Pendergast and Askew in March and charged them with stealing copper wire from the Exeter Energy Tire Burning Plant in Sterling, and in confessing, they implicated Stahlinski and Jolly in the Fusion thefts.

But Sumner at that point already had a tip that led him to Stahlinski, and had just a few days prior observed five 55-gallon barrels of stripped wire in plain view outside Stahlinski's home.

Stahlinski told police that he didn't work with Askew on the Fusion thefts — he saw Askew there scrapping copper wire but characterized him as his "competition" — but said that he did work with Pendergast.

Pendergast in March told police he needed the money to support his two daughters and his heroin addiction, the affidavit stated. Jolly in September told police that she and Stahlinski went to Calamari Recycling Co. almost every day to scrap the copper wire, and then to Hartford to purchase heroin.

The affidavit said that police in October spoke to the owner of Calamari, who said the four told him they worked for a computer salvage company.

According to Trooper First Class Dawn Taylor, receipts from Calamari's Recycling Company in Essex totaled about $139,000 for Jolly and $39,000 for Askew. Connecticut Scrap in Franklin also provided police with $24,241.08 in receipts for Pendergast and $2,084.58 for Askew.

Initially in the dark about the source of the wire, Jolly eventually learned the truth but her drug addiction was too bad for her to care, she told police, and she began driving Stahlinski and Pendergast to the Fusion plant every day.

e.moser@theday.com