A Leesburg man found with a stolen license plate claimed he needed it to be able to get to work.
A Mount Dora police officer was on patrol this past Friday when he asked the communications unit to run a records check on a truck. The check showed that the license plate had been reported as stolen to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
The officer stopped the truck and made contact with the driver, 30-year-old Trey Decloedt.
Decloedt spontaneously said his friend had given him the plate – which he knew was stolen – to use on the truck that Decloedt had recently purchased. He said he used the stolen plate so he could get to work, according to the arrest report. A check on Decloedt’s driving record showed that his license was canceled in September for driving while license suspended. In addition, Decloedt never registered the truck.
Decloedt was charged with a second degree felony charge of dealing in stolen property, driving while license suspended, failure to register a motor vehicle, and attaching a plate to a vehicle to which it was not assigned.
He was transported to the Lake County Jail where bond was set at $4,000.
