The owner of
a Marco Island landscape business is facing felony charges after detectives say
he stole thousands of dollars’ worth of mulch from Collier County government.
REDACTED, 60, REDACTED, Marco Island, was arrested Wednesday and charged
with grand theft and dealing in stolen property.
Collier
County Sheriff’s Office arrest reports gave this account:
On July 13,
CCSO detectives met with members of the Collier County Growth Management Department’s
Road Maintenance Division who advised they received a tip that there were
approximately 100 pallets of county-owned red mulch at REDACTED Affordable
Landscaping Service & Design site at REDACTED that had been removed
to another location. REDACTED did not have permission to store mulch at this
location or to dispose of it.
A pallet is
made up 70 bags of mulch and each bag cost the county $2.20.
Further
investigation by detectives determined that from June 16-18 REDACTED directed
an employee to load the pallets onto a truck. REDACTED had made arrangements
for the truck to remove the county-owned mulch from the James Road site. The
employee loaded approximately 90 pallets, or 6,300 bags, over three days that
was removed from the site.
On July 9,
the county Road Maintenance Division sent an e-mail to all of its vendors
advising them to return all county property, including mulch. Affordable
Landscaping returned 555 bags worth of county mulch on July 13, but not the 90
pallets that had been removed from James Road.
Follow-up
investigation revealed the missing mulch had been moved to a recycling site in
Felda.
The owner of
the recycling facility told detectives that REDACTED asked him to come to
Collier County and remove the mulch from the James Road site. He said REDACTED
asked the owner to sell the mulch for him.
During June
16-18, a truck from the recycling facility made multiple trips to the James
Road site and removed the 90 pallets of county mulch to Feld.
The mulch
was returned to the county on July 24. A total of 88 pallets, or 6,160 bags,
were recovered. The mulch was valued at $13,552.
