POCATELLO — A 19-year-old local man was recently arrested after police say he stole a large collection of silver bars and coins from a woman’s safe and pawned the items at a local pawn shop across multiple transactions.

Christopher Jeffrey Holmes, of Pocatello, has been charged with grand theft and burglary, both felonies, according to police and court records the Idaho State Journal recently obtained.

The investigation began to unfold the evening of March 11, after Pocatello police received a call from a woman who reported that all of the silver stored in a safe in her bedroom had gone missing, police said.

The woman told officers she had gone into the safe earlier that day to retrieve a car key and discovered the silver was gone. She explained that her husband had passed away a year and a half prior and that she had recently moved items between safes, so she initially thought she may have misplaced the silver. She had another family member assist her in searching the home, but they were unable to locate the items, according to the police report.

The woman told officers the safe is secured with a keypad lock in her upstairs bedroom, and that while Holmes does not have the code, the door could have been left open by someone who does. She further explained that keys to the safe were kept in a container inside the bedroom, making them accessible to anyone who entered the room, police said.

The woman also told officers she had been trying to get Holmes to move out of the residence and that he was not supposed to be there while she was away on a recent vacation, according to court records.

Officers conducted a preliminary search of the LeadsOnline database, a law enforcement tool used to track pawn transactions, and found that Holmes had conducted 11 separate pawn transactions involving silver coins and silver bullion between Jan. 23 and Feb. 19, police said.

The stolen items were described as approximately four 10-ounce silver bars and between 60 and 80 silver dollar-round coins. The woman estimated the total value of the missing property at between $13,000 and $20,000, the police report says.

Officers followed up at Pawn One in Pocatello, where a manager confirmed familiarity with the investigation and advised that the silver had already been sold to a company out of Boise. Officers subsequently obtained seven in-store security video files from Pawn One displaying Holmes conducting the transactions at the cash-out counter, police said.

Officers submitted a felony warrant request to the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office in early April, court records show.

Holmes appeared before 6th District Magistrate Judge David A. Hooste for an arraignment hearing on May 20 where his bond was set at $5,000.

He is scheduled to appear in court again on June 3 for a preliminary hearing. Prosecutors will attempt to present sufficient evidence to elevate the case from magistrate to district court for trial.

If convicted, the grand theft charge Holmes faces carries a penalty of no less than one year in prison and up to 14 years and a fine of up to $5,000. The burglary charge is punishable by no less than one year in prison and up to 10 years and a fine of up to $50,000.