Father, son tied to theft of truck

— For years, lawmen say they have been watching Rick Crook. His son, Randy, has been in and out of jail for much of his adult life, so they knew about him too.

But only recently did the Crooks turn up in a case together, authorities and court records say.

One night in July, the father and son teamed up to steal a seized truck held in the parking lot at the Saline County sheriff's office, court records say.

The pickup is still missing. Son Randy Crook, 29, is listed as a parole absconder.Father Rick Crook, 57, was arrested in the pickup case Sept. 1 on felony charges of theft of property, tampering with evidence, altering a serial number and misdemeanor criminal trespass.

"It's been hard to catch him," Lt. Mike Frost, head of investigations for the Saline County sheriff's office, said of the elder Crook. "This goes back a long way."

The pickup case isn't his only trouble with authorities.

After suspecting him of selling stolen goods for "a long time," Frost said, investigators persuaded a judge in March to let them search Rick Crook's house on Kruse Loop north of Benton.

Investigators seized several big-ticket items in the search that they believe were stolen, including a Toyota 4Runner and an all-terrain vehicle, court records say. They also found three guns.

Separately, deputies pulled Rick Crook over when they spotted him driving a stolen Chevrolet Blazer, court records say. In the Blazer, officers found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, records say.

Frost wouldn't divulge many details about the March case against Rick Crook, which is still pending. He said it involves dealing in stolen goods, and that increasingly thieves trade stolen merchandise for drugs instead of pawning things at stores, making the items harder to recover and return to victims.

"He's very knowledgeable," Frost said of Rick Crook, declining to elaborate.

When Rick Crook was arrested in March after the search of his home, one detective presumed he was a convicted felon and booked Rick Crook on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. However, that was a mistake, said Andy Gill, a deputy prosecutor in Saline County working on Crook's case.

"I have never found a felony conviction for him," Gill said.

In 2007, Rick Crook faced a felony charge of theft by receiving after a man reported finding his mother's missing Harley-Davidson motorcycle at the same motel Crook was spotted in. Prosecutors eventually dropped that charge.

There were "weird" issues with the case, Gill said, noting that the victim had a criminal record and there was doubt that the right Crook was implicated in the case.

"It wasn't going to be the one to make a fuss about or try to hammer him with," Gill said.

The stolen pickup case is more solid, detectives say.

Surveillance video caught much of the theft on tape, detective Kevin Cooper said. Using that footage, detectives tracked down a woman who they say admitted to driving both Rick and Randy Crook to the sheriff's office that night in July.

The younger Crook drove the green 1999 Ford F-250 out of the unfenced and unguarded parking lot, court records say, while the elder Crook followed behind in the woman's car.

The woman told authorities she then dropped the father off at a spot in Benton, where he climbed inside the truck, and the two men drove away.

Police said they had seized the pickup July 22 during a methamphetamine bust, suspecting it was stolen because its vehicle identification number had been tampered with.

They parked the truck behind the sheriff's office in Benton - a lot that will soon be fenced - and awaited confirmation by Arkansas State Police on whether it was stolen before pursuing a case against the elder Crook. He had registered the car in his name, the detective said.

Rick Crook is due in court in October. It's unclear whether he has an attorney, and a person who answered two calls to his home phone number said he wasn't there, then hung up without taking a message.

Detectives didn't seem optimistic about finding Randy Crook, who is on parole for a 2007 felony drug charge, according to Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman Dina Tyler. She said he's been listed as a parole absconder since Sept. 9 because he has failed to check in with his parole officer.

He was last seen on Labor Day by a state police trooper. He was a passenger in a stolen car that the trooper stopped in Pulaski County, and he took off running, authorities said.

"He hops around from place to place," Frost said.

Arkansas, Pages 7, 12 on 09/21/2009

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