Monster Pawn Ownership, Employees in Springfield, Bloomington-Normal Charged With Criminal Enterprise

By Benjamin Cox on January 17, 2025 at 8:56am

The Illinois Attorney General’s Office has announced the arrest of several individuals across Central Illinois for allegedly running a criminal enterprise out of of a pawn shop chain of stores.

The ILAG’s Office charged Monster Pawn’s owners, 65-year old Edwin Pierce, 58-year old Kathleen Pierce, and the son 28-year old Everson Pierce along with 57-year old Thomas O’Donnell of Normal, 71-year old Steven Mileham of Springfield, 34-year old Jessica Cloyd of Mechanicsburg, and 25-year old Carter Walker of Chatham as a result of a multi-jurisdictional investigation by the ILAG’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force.

The case was investigated in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations; the Illinois Department of Revenue Criminal Investigations Division; and the Bloomington, Chatham, and Springfield police departments.

The investigation alleges that between November 2023 and July 2024, the defendants ran an organized retail crime operation at two Monster Pawn locations in Springfield, two locations in Bloomington, and one in Normal.

According to the investigation’s report, the Pierce family, with Monster Pawn shop managers and employees worked together to purchase new merchandise, such as televisions, tools and video game equipment, still in its original packaging. According to Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, the merchandise was represented as being the proceeds of retail theft, which the defendants would purchase well below market value. The Pierce family and their employees then allegedly sold those items online below market value.

All of the individuals face a broad range of misdemeanors up to Class X felonies ranging from organized retail crime, money laundering, to misdemeanor theft facing a range of prison time, fines, and/or probation.

The case is being prosecuted by the AG’s Statewide Grand Jury Bureau, which is authorized by Illinois statute to prosecute multi-county cases involving drugs, guns, organized retail crime or money laundering.