Montana man sentenced for stealing $181K in construction equipment and trucking it to Idaho

A Montana resident was sentenced to prison for stealing construction equipment from a business and transporting it across state lines to Idaho.

On June 23, Eric Brandon Wright, 43, was sentenced to three years and five months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana.

Wright pleaded guilty in January 2026 to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.

Officials say that Wright stole $181,890 worth of construction equipment from RDO Rental Equipment in Kalispell, Montana.

On  August 23, 2023 and into the early morning of August 24, 2023, Wright reportedly entered RDO and stole various digging and mulching equipment along with a Towmaster trailer.

Wright hooked up the trailer to an employee’s vehicle to haul away the stolen equipment, officials said. The employee’s vehicle was later recovered, but a motorized wheelchair kept inside of it was missing.

On January 19, 2024, law enforcement received a tip that Wright was selling construction equipment on Facebook, which they tracked to a storage facility in Lewiston, Idaho.

The facility owner told police that Wright had been renting storage at his business.

Wright was arrested on January 30, 2024, on an unrelated warrant.

While he was in custody, he was questioned by police about the RDO construction equipment theft.

Officials said that Wright denied stealing the equipment and claimed he bought it in Missoula.

Investigators were able to use cellphone data and surveillance video to link Wright’s truck to the RDO facility on the night of the theft.

“Responding to a report of a separate theft, officers were called to the residence of Wright’s uncle in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, where they discovered the missing Towmaster trailer. They also noticed the uncle using an electric wheelchair similar to the one stolen from the employee’s vehicle,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Kalispell Police Department.