A scratched-up Leesburg man with a blood-stained shirt was jailed last week after he was caught driving a vehicle that belonged to a Villages resident.
A Lady Lake Police sergeant stopped a gray Honda passenger car early Friday morning and spoke with the driver, 28-year-old Isaac Gonzalez, who had two active Lake County warrants. The sergeant verified that the vehicle was registered to a Villages resident and discovered multiple keys inside the car. The keys all had white tags on them that contained the year, make and color and what was later identified as the registered owner’s last name, the report states.
After being read his rights, Gonzalez admitted to stealing the keys from a body shop in Lady Lake. He said he sustained the cuts while hopping a fence to the business, the report says. Police were aware of multiple burglaries at Joe Hudson’s Collision Center, which included one last month where a teenager was arrested after breaking into a vehicle left overnight at the business.
Officers responded to the body shop and discovered broken glass on three rear doors of the business. An officer also made contact with one of the registered owners of a key that was recovered inside the Honda and she confirmed that her vehicle, a 2012 brown Kia, was at the collision center for repairs, the report says.
Gonzalez, who lives at 2623 Berdetta Trail in Leesburg, was arrested and transported to the Lake County Jail, where he was charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle, burglary of an unoccupied structure, knowingly driving while license suspended and failure to appear on a past charge of grand theft. He was being held on $7,500 bond and is due in court Dec. 28 at 8 a.m., jail records show.
