PEKIN, Ill. — Two then-employees of Pekin’s Reditus Labs were arrested and charged with burglarizing the facility where they worked in September, according to police and court documents obtained by 25 News.
The two suspects, Aaron Underwood, 38, and Noah Christian, 33, are accused of entering the Reditus building unauthorized on the night of September 16, using a credit card to force their way into an executive office and taking several bags of items, according to Tazewell County court documents.
Both men have been fired from the company and were arrested September 27. A police interviewee and a Reditus security report claim the two were intoxicated during the alleged incident.
“[The two men] stagger through the vestibule and into the business,” the report says. “Based on their gaits and the totality of the circumstances, [redacted] believes that Noah and Aaron Underwood were intoxicated during the burglary.”
The report alleges the two employees came to Reditus from a nearby party at PAL Health Technologies, sister company to Reditus. Employees were celebrating Christian’s last day working for PAL. Both companies are located in adjacent buildings near the corner of Enterprise Drive and Riverway Drive in Pekin.
Security has been very tight at Reditus Labs since April, when a judge appointed a receiver to oversee the well-being of the company due to an ongoing civil lawsuit against the company and its CEO Aaron Rossi.
Reditus made a name for itself during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it received more than $200 million in state COVID testing contracts. Rossi was indicted for federal tax fraud in March, and the company is facing ongoing civil lawsuits from business partners alleging he shut them out.
A police report states that the company’s sensitive documents are stored in the executive wing, where Underwood and Christian allegedly entered. However, sources close to the investigation say the items taken were personal items and not company property and that Aaron Rossi’s office was not broken into.
Screenshots from surveillance videos apparently show the men carrying out bags full of items, including wine bottles, DVD’s, perfume and more. In the weeks following, Pekin Police conducted multiple interviews. One employee, who was also at the party, says he tried to stop the two men.
“I told them that it wasn’t a good idea for them to do that, and so them being very intoxicated, they decided to do it anyways,” the man said in a police interview September 23.
In screenshots of text messages attached to the report, Underwood seems to admit to his role to an person whose name is redacted.
“Should [have] went home that night,” Underwood said. “Me and Noah thought it would be funny.”
Christian and Underwood both posted $500 bond, and both will be arraigned at the end of October in Tazewell County court.
