An observant Orange patrol officer recovered two stolen Ford King Ranch model pickup trucks early Saturday morning at the City Boat Ramp off Simmons Drive. A Lake Charles man was arrested and taken to the Orange County Jail.
Officer Seth Williams reported he was patrolling the boat ramp area at 2 a.m. Saturday when he saw two vehicles with lights on. Other cars parked there were dark and the officer said it was unusual to find vehicles in the middle of the night there unless people were going fishing.
He saw a 1999 F-250 King Ranch truck without a license was driving away. However, the truck stopped and a man got out. He walked up to the officer’s patrol vehicle and said he had bought the truck from a man called Joe. A 26-year-old Louisiana woman in a Cadillac told the officer the man was her boyfriend and he had told her he had bought a truck. He asked her to meet him in Orange.
In addition, the man told Officer Williams he was swapping the 1999 model for a 2006 F-350 King Ranch truck that was parked. When the officer had police dispatch check the trucks’ VIN, he learned the trucks had been stolen.
The 1999 model had been stolen from the parking lot of International Paper in Evadale in Jasper County on Friday. The 2006 model had been reported stoen from Leesville, Louisiana. Officer Williams reported the trucks had been hacked to be started without a key.
Leward Scott Clement of Lake Charles was arrested for two counts of possession of a stolen vehicle.
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