He coerced workers into aiding theft scheme at Lakewood warehouse. Here’s his sentence
A man who served years in federal prison for defrauding a Tacoma homeless shelter was sentenced Thursday to 22 months in state prison for a theft scheme at a Lakewood warehouse that involved disconnected security cameras and threats to fire workers who didn’t help him.
Jeffrey Ryan Goodell pleaded guilty in October in Pierce County Superior Court to six counts of first-degree theft for taking at least $680,000 worth of pallets and construction materials between June and August 2021 from a warehouse he managed, according to court records.
The items were marketed on Craigslist as an “investment opportunity,” and a customer reportedly paid about $203,000 to Goodell’s codefendant, Paul Vickers Jr., for materials to build pallets and a forklift lease.
The customer told investigators with the Lakewood Police Department that Goodell helped him get a contract with Costco and ULine, a shipping supplies company, to sell the pallets he assembled.
Vickers Jr. pleaded guilty Oct. 25 and was sentenced for compounding Goodell’s crime by accepting items and funds from him in exchange for not reporting the thefts. Vickers also worked at the warehouse until a few weeks before the thefts were discovered.
Compounding is a gross misdemeanor, and Vickers Jr. received a deferred sentence of one year. He avoids jail time if he maintains law abiding behavior and other conditions.
To pull off the thefts, Goodell directed an employee to turn off exterior security cameras at the warehouse that covered the area where items were loaded onto trailers, according to the probable cause document, and he altered record keeping about the pallet inventory.
Text messages allegedly showed Goodell directing employees to move skids onto trailers not owned by the company, Birchstone Management, formerly Great Wide Logistics, at a warehouse at 9704 47th Ave. SW. One employee reportedly filed a whistleblower report indicating that Goodell had threatened employees’ jobs if they didn’t comply with his requests. More than three employees reportedly indicated that they had been threatened with termination for not complying.
Pallets and materials then were taken to fenced lots in Lakewood and Edgewood. A company investigation located the pallets. Several hundred skids recovered at the lot in Lakewood were valued at $680,766.24, according to court records. In Edgewood, a storage area had six trailers with pallets.
The pallets were owned by CHEP, a company that rents out its blue pallets to businesses rather than selling them. When the company conducted an audit of Birchstone Management’s Lakewood warehouse in August 2021, it found a trailer with seven skids of their pallets that had been unaccounted for.
In court Thursday, Goodell’s attorney, Shannon Polley of Puget Law Group, asked Judge Bryan Chushcoff to impose the 22-month sentence that she and prosecutors had agreed to recommend.
Goodell was previously convicted of felony bank fraud in U.S. District Court and was sentenced in 2013 to four years in federal prison. The conviction stemmed from Goodell draining the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s bank accounts of nearly $1.3 million through unauthorized loans he made to friends and associates.
The accounts were with Northwest Commercial Bank, which later made the Tacoma Rescue Mission whole after the allegations came to light that one of its loan officers, Goodell, used the accounts to divert money to 14 people and businesses, according to a 2012 story from The News Tribune.
In the pallet-theft case, prosecutors originally charged Goodell with leading organized crime, first-degree theft and first-degree trafficking in stolen property. The charges were amended to six counts of theft as part of a plea agreement.
Goodell, who has remained out of custody for the duration of the case, declined to address the court when he was given a chance to speak. Asked by Chuscoff what he would do when he is released from prison, Goodell said he would rebuild his life and try to make it up to his family.
After answering a few more questions, a Sheriff’s Department deputy handcuffed Goodell and led him from the room. As he walked out, Goodell’s father in law, Rick Franz, who was in the gallery, told Goodell to look him in the face.
Franz attended the sentencing hearing with three others who had some connection to Goodell, including Gary Vance, who said he was a friend of the defendant’s first wife. They were dissatisfied with the punishment Goodell received.
After court adjourned, Franz called the sentence Goodell received “pathetic” and said he should have received 10 or 15 years.
