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Feds raid Warren Fabricating HQ in Hubbard
HUBBARD
Warren Fabricating & Machining Corp. workers will return to work today after being sent home Wednesday morning when federal investigators showed up to raid the manufacturing company’s Chestnut Ridge Road headquarters.
Investigators with the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived about 8 a.m. Wednesday and remained on site into Wednesday evening. In a statement, an attorney for Warren Fabricating said the company would be open for business today.
“Warren Fabricating has done absolutely nothing inappropriate. We are cooperating with all investigating authorities. We don’t yet know any details of any allegations of wrongdoing, and we don’t know the source of those allegations,” Atty. Ian N. Friedman, of Cleveland-based Friedman & Nemecek, LLC, said. “Here’s what we do know: Warren Fabricating will be open for business on Thursday, the 160 employees will be back to work, and they will be doing business the right way – just as Warren Fabricating has done business for 50 years.”
Spokesmen for the IRS, which is the lead investigating agency on the case, and the FBI said Wednesday the agencies could not comment on the nature of the case, as it is under federal court seal.
Craig Casserly, public information officer for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, said as of Wednesday afternoon, no arrests had been made.
Warren Fabricating specializes in the fabrication, machining and assembly of large steel weldments for numerous industries, according to its website. The corporate headquarters is on Chestnut Ridge Road; the company also has a plant on Mahoning Avenue in Warren.
The company was in the news when its most senior ranking employee, Paul F. Theisler Jr. of Canfield, was charged in January 2017 with stealing more than $1.5 million from the company. He was sentenced in August to two years at Lorain Correctional Institution.
As part of his plea agreement, he paid $400,000 in restitution, according to Trumbull County court records.
John C. Rebhan founded Warren Fabricating and Machining in 1967, according to the company’s website. After he died in 2008, his children, Eric Rebhan and Regina Mitchell, took over leadership of the company. Mitchell left her leadership role there in October 2017 to focus on an addiction-treatment center she and a partner founded.
The statement released on behalf of the company Wednesday said Warren Fabricating “look[s] forward to this investigation bringing out the truth – because we know the truth is that Warren Fabricating has held itself to the highest business standards and ethics. That’s how this company established its excellent reputation over the last 50 years, and it’s how Warren Fabricating will continue doing business for years to come.”
The statement concluded: “We would be happy to share more information as it becomes available, but given the sensitive nature of this situation, we will not be commenting beyond this statement today.”