BENNINGTON — A Pleasant Street man is facing charges that he stole a coin collection worth at least $15,000, which police said they were told was sold for money to buy crack cocaine.

William E. Beagle Sr., of Bennington, pleaded innocent in Bennington criminal court Monday to a felony charge of grand larceny of items worth more than $900.

In an affidavit, Officer Amanda Thomson, of the Bennington Police Department, said she met with a man on Pleasant Street on Jan. 15. He said he had learned through a mutual friend that Beagle, whom he knows, had taken a large number of coins from his apartment and sold them for drugs.

The friend gave police a statement, which said she had been with Beagle and other people when they stopped outside of the man’s apartment Jan. 14. She said Beagle and another man went into Russell’s apartment and returned with cases and a bag full of coins.

The friend said she heard from Beagle the next day.

“William told me that (the) coins were gone and they now had crack to smoke,” she said.

The man later told Thomson that Beagle contacted him after he knew the man had gone to police and asked if he could arrange to pay the man back for the coins but the man said as of Feb. 2, he had gotten no money from Beagle.

Thomson said she went to a Pleasant Street apartment Feb. 7 looking for Beagle and found him hiding under a blanket in a closet.

According to the affidavit, Beagle denied taking the coins but told Thomson she would not find them in Bennington. Thomson said people she spoke to during the investigation told her the coins were taken to Rutland to be sold.