WELD COUNTY, Colo. — A man has been arrested after Weld County Sheriff’s deputies recovered a stolen backhoe worth about $120,000, according to the Weld County Sheriff's Office.
Ramon Ramirez was arrested on suspicion of first-degree aggravated motor vehicle theft, which is a felony.
Around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, a deputy responded to Aims Community College in Fort Lupton for a theft report. The caller said his John Deere backhoe had been stolen overnight.
The owner told deputies the backhoe was equipped with a GPS tracker and that he had tracked the vehicle to 5402 Weld County Road 23.
As the deputy headed to that location, the GPS indicated the backhoe was inside a building on that property. By the time deputies arrived, the backhoe had been moved off the property and onto an access road, according to the sheriff's office.
When deputies located it, they noticed that its license plate and all identifying markings had been removed.
Deputies called Ramirez who is the property owner. He claimed, according to the sheriff's office, that he found the backhoe on the side of the road Tuesday night and moved it to his shop.
He told deputies he assumed the owner would be looking for it, so he moved it back out onto the road before leaving Wednesday morning for Denver.
Ramirez also claimed he called Weld County Dispatch Tuesday night to report he had found the backhoe, but no record of that call exists, according to the sheriff's office.
Deputies got a search warrant for Ramirez’s property and discovered the backhoe’s license plate in a burn pit inside the fenced property.
When Ramirez returned to the property from Denver he was arrested.
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