Rick D. Thompson, 63, was charged with theft, a Class 1 felony, on July 30, 2026, according to DeKalb County Court records. (Inset photo provided by DeKalb County Jail) (Shaw Local News Network)
A man was charged after authorities alleged he stole more than $215,000 worth of equipment from a solar farm construction site in Kingston Township.
Rick D. Thompson, 63, who is listed as homeless in DeKalb County court records, was charged with theft, a Class 1 felony. If he’s convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Records show that Schomburg & Schomburg Construction employees told DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies at 7 a.m. July 29 that equipment from their work site near the intersection of Route 72 and Pleasant Hill Road was missing.
Deputies were told an AirTag left inside one of the stolen items pinged from a Rockford motel at 4 a.m., and continued to do so.
A construction site manager provided the Rockford Police Department and DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office with the location of the AirTag: a room at the Town & County Motel in Rockford, court records show.
Detectives who tried to make contact with the occupants of that room did not receive a response, prompting them to obtain a search warrant from a Winnebago County judge, according to the court filing. When a deputy returned to the motel in the 4400 block of 11th Street in Rockford, Thompson and a woman were outside of the motel room.
Once inside the room, authorities found five items with a total worth of $215,586. Those items included a Trimble base station and Trimble rover station that are each worth $80,000. Pile-driving equipment worth $54,000, a Milwaukee six-pack battery charger with a value of $987 and a $599 Predator generator were also found, documents show.
Authorities allege those are the same items that the construction site company reported missing, according to court records.
The woman showed police evidence on her phone and admitted to driving Thompson to the site of the alleged theft, according to a police synopsis.
When interviewed by detectives, Thompson told them “he did not remember anything,” a sheriff’s deputy wrote in the court filing.
On July 30, he was granted pretrial release by DeKalb County Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick, but was given a no-contact order for involved parties.
The construction site was also the place that employed workers who recently rushed to aid the victims of a rollover car crash, according to multiple records. On July 7, a group of 11 Schomburg & Schomburg construction workers stopped their jobs to help the five people seriously injured in a car crash near them. Three weeks later, some of the site’s workers discovered that their equipment was missing.
Thompson’s next court date is at 9 a.m. Sept. 17, in front of Judge Philip Montgomery.
Camden Lazenby covers DeKalb County news for the Daily Chronicle.

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