Shop owner charged with grand theft auto after keeping vehicles with no repairs made

The shop owner of Anytime Mobile Auto Repair Service in Bay County, Florida has been arrested for charging vehicle repair costs in advance, never making the repair and then keeping the vehicles in his possession. 

In May, one customer issued a complaint to the Bay County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations team after being unable to make contact with the shop owner. The customer has paid $2,600 over the course of the year to repair a 2004 Kia Sorento. Officers confronted the shop owner, who said he had not started repairs on the vehicle, which was kept on his property, according to the Bay Country Sheriff's Office Facebook page. 

During the course of the investigation, three other victims came forward with similar complaints on the shop owner. In one case, a customer paid the shop owner more than $8,000 to fix a vehicle that had instead been stored in a storage unit and had parts removed from it. Most of the customer's vehicles had been towed to the shop owner's home and never touched again. One had had the VIN number removed.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office charged the shop owner with three counts of Grand Theft Auto, three counts of Theft, Property Crimes, Possession of a Vehicle with an Altered Number and Grand Theft.