The plan was to dig up the stones, stash them at a nearby lot on Oregon Avenue, and truck them in shifts to sell to a North Jersey salvage yard.



For transportation, he hired Gustav Propper, a waste hauler from Northeast Philadelphia with a criminal record. In the 1970s, Propper served a jail term for dumping explosive chemicals into a Bensalem Township sewer, and was fined $25 for discarding slime into Pennypack Creek. For a while, he also owned a Bensalem-based demolition firm that in 1974 knocked down a house in Northern Liberties and killed a woman in the house next door.



All told, Monkiewicz's crew ripped up 16,300 pavers before the shopkeeper finally called the city, which called in the police.



The stones were worth about $4 a pop, but Monkiewicz sold them for $1 each. The entire haul was worth more than $65,000. (In 2016, it translates to about $150,000.)