81-Vehicle Theft Looks Like An Inside Job

Omaha World Herald ^ | March 12, 2009 | MAUNETTE LOEKS

[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

[Netizen]

Did a search and didn't see this update.

[Netizen]

Cross linking to the original artical

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2204196/posts?page=80

[Netizen]

Just pinging you to a follow up to an article you posted on Tuesday.

[RoadTest]

The owner robbed himself? He’s dumb enough to be a Liberal!

[nbhunt]

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.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

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.

[rellimpank]

---Tooele, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, --

--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--

[Oldpuppymax]

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!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

At big auto auctions, its not unusual to sell of three hundred cars...

[Netizen]

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.

[Netizen]

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.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

[edcoil]

Sounds like people were coming into the dealership so he decided to do a road show and auction the vehicles.

If he owned the cars he can do that and it would I think only be theft if did not then pay the manufacturer.

[nbhunt]

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..

[stylin19a]

I particularly like how the Title of the article goes way out on a limb.

[Netizen]

If he owned the cars he can do that and it would I think only be theft if did not then pay the manufacturer.

From the excerpt

"the cars weren't theirs to sell because they were owned by a Toyota financing company."

[Paladin2]

"A Scotts Bluff County court document indicates that Legacy Auto Controller Rachel Fait was suspected of embezzling money from the business over the past several months. The suspicions are detailed in the affidavit filed in regards to warrants charging owner Allen Patch, controller Rachel Fait and general manager Rick Covello with the theft of 81 cars from the business. The document indicates an emplyoyee brought records to authorities she believes shows Fait had embezzled over $46,000 from the company. The document says Fait is believed to have taken money and checks from deposits. The document also says the employee discovered Fait was taking receivable checks and depositing them in a bank account unknown to any of the employees. The document says the alleged theft was discovered when a customer was billed for service he had already paid. The document said in December there was a lot of turmoil between Patch, Fait and Covello and the employee heard Patch and Covello talk about Fait taking money. The employee said the three had a meeting and afterwards they were all getting along and Patch said Fait would be staying to close out the books. The document also says another employee told Police she was paid for converting manufacturer's statement of origin documents to the courthouse and converting them to titles. The woman told Police she met with the three suspects Tuesday morning at Patch's home, and was told to give six keys to an unknown man, but instead she gave them to Police. The employee said "they were using me". "

http://www.kneb.com/news/index/a1629df8-a0b5-47a6-b450-c51b070dc86b

[Netizen]

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?

[rollo tomasi]

“Yah, like I told ya, we haven't had any vehicles go missing.”

[Netizen]

The document indicates an emplyoyee brought records to authorities

I wonder if that would be Cervantes.