BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— A 29-year-old Lake Butler man was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing his girlfriend’s truck while she was taking a shower.
Christopher William Crawford pleaded no contest to the July 7 offense of grand theft of a motor vehicle.
According to an arrest report, the mother of Crawford’s girlfriend called deputies after she loaned her 2002 Chevrolet Silverado to the daughter and Crawford made off with the vehicle.
The mother added that her daughter’s vehicle was in a shop undergoing repairs, and that she allowed her daughter to use the truck.
The daughter told deputies she and Crawford had been living together on and off for about a year. She added that when she got out of the shower around 9 p.m. she noticed that Crawford was no longer in the house, and the truck was gone.
“(The girlfriend) contacted Crawford via cellular phone,” wrote arresting officer Moises Carotti in an arrest report. “Crawford stated he just had to run an errand and would return shortly.”
The girlfriend waited about an hour to contact Crawford again through calls and text messages, but the only response by Crawford was by text and was “gibberish.”
The victims decided to wait until the following day to contact law enforcement. Shortly after deputies arrived to investigate the incident, Crawford notified his girlfriend that he had left the truck at the Graham post office.
Deputies found the Silverado there, along with body damage to the truck, on the left side under the gas tank and on the front bumper.
A floor jack and ammunition were also missing from the vehicle.
The girlfriend provided Facebook messenger communications to deputies. The messages were from Crawford verifying he was in possession of the vehicle.
Carotti wrote the while the defendant was in the Bradford County Jail for other charges, he interviewed Crawford there.
“I asked Crawford if he had taken the white, 2002 Chevrolet Silverado,” Carotti wrote. “He stated, yes, he was upset that his girlfriend…refused to take him to pick up a motorcycle that he had purchased. While (the girlfriend) was preoccupied, he then stole the vehicle, abandoning the vehicle at the post office the next day.”
