Car thief pleads guilty

A habit of joy riding has landed a nineteen year old Belize City youth in some hot water. The reason is that Otis Carr seems to prefer using other people’s cars instead of his own. Carr, who lives on Wagner’s Lane was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of taking conveyance and two counts of damage to property. The latest incident happened on Good Friday night. According to police, Carr drove off in a Ford Taurus that was parked in front of the Alliance Office on South Street sometime between seven and nine o’clock Friday night. The vehicle belonged to well known News Five employee Stephen Ferguson. Not content to merely drive, Carr told police that he also crashed the Taurus into the back of another vehicle, damaging the Taurus extensively. He did however, manage to return the car back to where he found it near Wesley Church. While there were apparently no eye witnesses to the deed, lady luck did not smile on Carr. He had gone to the police station on Sunday to lodge a complaint about a totally different matter. While there, he was questioned about an incident earlier this month in which another Belize City car owner told police that gasoline had been taken out of his vehicle. The culprit had left a valuable piece of evidence behind – his voter identification card, the same one we put on the screen. Carr confessed to both crimes. He appeared in Magistrates Court this morning and pleaded guilty to all charges. On the two counts of taking conveyance, Carr was fined five hundred dollars and for the two counts of damage to property he was fined seven hundred and fifty dollars. He was ordered to pay two hundred and fifty dollars forthwith, which he did. The rest is to be paid by May fifteenth. As to the two car owners whose vehicles were smashed, they will have to foot the repair bills as the Magistrate did not order any compensation to be paid to the victims.