Two arrested after yet another alleged AT&T phone line theft in rural California county

Amador County deputies on Sunday arrested two men accused of cutting and attempting to steal phone lines — at least the fifth such incident reported in recent months within the rural Northern California county.

A dispatcher around 6:50 p.m. noticed an AT&T phone service outage and sent a deputy to the area of Highway 88 and Highway 124 near Ione, where deputies in early May arrested three suspects accused of cutting phone lines to steal copper wire, the Amador County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

The same deputy who made last month's arrests arrived at the scene Sunday evening and located two men from Stockton, ages 49 and 34, according to the news release.

The deputy determined that the 34-year-old suspect was on probation in San Joaquin County for a recent arrest related to cutting phone lines, the Sheriff's Office said. He also had two felony warrants related to vandalism and theft, authorities said.

The deputy then located a coiled stretch of cut phone line near the suspects’ vehicle as well as a pair of pruning shears, according to the news release.

Both men were arrested and booked into the Amador County Jail on multiple felony charges including grand theft, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's officials, following the previous arrest on May 7, said AT&T fiber cables had been cut at least four times up to that point this year. The outages have left Amador County sheriff's dispatchers unable to receive most 911 calls made within the county.