Posted on 03/12/2009 7:06:08 AM PDT by Netizen
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. Three Scottsbluff auto dealership executives are expected to be under arrest by this morning after they packed up their belongings, loaded 81 new vehicles onto trucks and left town.
Scottsbluff police, with help from federal authorities, tracked the trio across the southwestern United States on Wednesday as many of the vehicles were sold at auctions.
Felony theft charges were filed in Scotts Bluff County Court on Wednesday against Legacy Auto Sales owner Allen Patch and two of his senior managers: comptroller Rachel Fait, 37, and general manager Rick Covello, 53.
Detectives located Patch, 52, at his attorney's office in Tooele County, Utah, and were waiting to arrest him. Scottsbluff Police Capt. Kevin Spencer said he had not been arrested as of 8:30 p.m. CDT.
Fait was arrested in Tooele County earlier Wednesday. Covello is expected to turn himself in to Scottsbluff authorities today.
According to police, 81 new Ford and Toyota vehicles were loaded onto auto transport trailers from the dealership over the weekend and Monday evening. Scotts Bluff Deputy County Attorney John Childress said the vehicles, among them sedans to pickups, are valued at more than $2.5 million.
According to court documents, plans to title and sell the vehicles at auto auctions were in the works for weeks.
-snip
According to police, dealership employees converted manufacturer documents to ownership titles at the Scotts Bluff County Clerk's Office on Feb. 26 and 27 and then Thursday, Friday and Monday.
It is not unusual for a car dealership to obtain vehicle titles, Spencer said, but in this case, "the cars weren't theirs to sell because they were owned by a Toyota financing company."
-snip
more at link
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
Just pinging you to a follow up to an article you posted on Tuesday.
The owner robbed himself? He’s dumb enough to be a Liberal!
Just what plans would they have for all the stolen cars? How do you get rid of them? Strip and sell the parts? sell them in Mexico? Hold them hostage? Put them on a boat for foreign countries?
That’ a lot of vehicles.
How on earth did these three yahoos think they could get away with this? I hereby nominate them for the Larwin© Awards, kinda like the Darwin awards, except for stupidity in theft/larceny.
--take it from one who lived there, no, it's not a suburb of SLC-----another example of why you can generally leave off everything after "MSM tells you" in my byline--
Desperate people do desperate things. But going to jail is a little too desperate. I was a Buick dealer for years and nothing like this ever occurred to me, during good times or bad. There ain’t enough money to spend a day in a cell!
At big auto auctions, its not unusual to sell of three hundred cars...
From the article
Authorities had tracked down at least 36 vehicles, including 16 sold at a Salt Lake City auction and seven recovered from a Salt Lake City dealership. Vehicles were also found in Las Vegas, but that number was not available. Police found seven vehicles parked at the Western Nebraska Regional Airport in Scottsbluff.
Rob Brasher, owner of Brashers Salt Lake Auto Auction in Utah, confirmed that some of the stolen vehicles had been sold at his business. He declined to comment further, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer because he was trying to work out issues with Toyota.
Doug Bergener, a manager at Bargain Buggys in Tooele, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, said he and his partner have known Patch and Fait for nearly 20 years.
Bergener said he heard recently that Patch and Fait were shutting down the Scottsbluff dealership, and he offered to buy 10 used vehicles.
The vehicles arrived at the Manheim Utah Auto Auction in Woods Cross, Utah, aboard an auto transport truck Monday morning.
Looks like the Comptroller was already in big trouble. Probably figured, if you’re going to go down, go down big!
from the article
According to an arrest affidavit, two employees told police that Fait was suspected of embezzling money from the company. One said Fait had taken more than $46,000 from the business and kept a large backpack filled with cash.
If he owned the cars he can do that and it would I think only be theft if did not then pay the manufacturer.
So this means the two guys had all the paperwork (titles)on the cars also. You can tell I would not make a good theif..
From the excerpt
"the cars weren't theirs to sell because they were owned by a Toyota financing company."
http://www.kneb.com/news/index/a1629df8-a0b5-47a6-b450-c51b070dc86b
The original article said the woman that showed up for work on Tuesday morning suspected that something wasn’t right, when she saw the cars were missing, the three desks cleaned out and the their three computers were missing. Ya think?
I wonder if that would be Cervantes.
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