A former employee of AMI Doduco in Murrysville and two other people were held for court Tuesday after a witness testified that the trio sold so much scrap silver that the witness' scrap yard began paying them $3,000 a day for the metal.

Saltsburg residents Ryan Allen Doak, 26, of 121 Holly Drive; Pamela Shermenti, 51; and William Shermenti, 56, are charged with theft, criminal conspiracy and receiving stolen property. The three are accused of stealing more than a quarter of a million dollars worth of silver from AMI Doduco, Pamela Shermenti's former employer.

The three are accused of taking scraps of silver left over from the production of electrical contacts and taking the material to PJ Greco Sons Inc., a scrap yard in Tarentum.

Gloria Bielata, a cashier at the scrap yard, testified that the three have brought silver to the store about 50 times. Because the store could not immediately pay out the amount the silver was worth, one of the three would pick up about $3,000 a day from the store.

The Shermantis are married and Doak is their daughter's fiance.

Only once did Doak sign his real name on a pay slip from the scrap yard while the Shermentis used aliases, Bielata testified.

Raymond Matsey, an employee with AMI Doduco, testified in Magisterial Judge Charles Conway's court in Murrysville, that the scraps are collected and then melted and reused in the production process. Because it is a small amount of silver used at the factory, he said he did not have records immediately available to show how much was missing.

According to the report filed by Murrysville police, the three had been stealing silver scraps since as early as 2004.

William Wiker, Doak's attorney, argued that the charges should be dropped because no police report had been filed by the company reporting theft.

"There's no evidence anything's ever been stolen," he said.

But Patrick Flannigan, assistant Westmoreland County district attorney, said because of the connection between the three defendants and the rarity of the silver sold at the scrap yard, a case could be made.

Judge Charles Conway agreed.

"It can be stolen without a police report," he said.

The three will have a hearing date set for Westmoreland County Court.