FAYETTEVILLE — Delbert Raymond Price upgraded from a Hyundai to a Mercedes Benz when he arrived in Orlando, Fla., in February and kept it for about seven months. Price was arrested in August while driving the car in Springdale.
Price, 45, was convicted at a bench trial Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court of the theft of leased or rented property valued at more than $25,000.
Legal Lingo
Theft of Leased or Rented Property
A person commits the crime of stealing leased or rented property if, with the intent to deprive the owner of their property, they purposefully fail to return leased or rented personal property to the place and at the time specified in a written agreement; conceal or aids in the concealment of the property from the owner; sells, encumbers, conveys, pawns, loans, abandons or gives away the leased or rented property without the written consent of the lessor; or, returns the property to the lessor at the end of the lease term but does not pay the lease charges agreed upon.
Source: Staff Report
“It was 177 days he had that thing,” said Kevin Metcalf, deputy prosecutor. “He didn’t keep it safe, he used and damaged it and ran up the mileage.”
Price put almost 12,000 miles on the car, which wasn't supposed to be driven out of Florida, and the car was damaged to the tune of more than $2,100 in what Price said was a parking lot accident.
Circuit Judge William Storey sentenced Price, who has a number of felonies and is considered a habitual offender, to 30 years at the Arkansas Department of Correction with 24 years suspended and ordered him to pay $8,756 in restitution to the rental car company. The restitution was for mileage racked up outside Florida, at 50 cents per mile, and to cover towing and returning the car and having the damage repaired.
“Mr. Price, you need to take a different approach to things,” Storey said during sentencing. “You’ve been involved in the criminal justice system for a long time.”
Prosecutors said Price was prosecuted in Arkansas because he was in possession of the car here and they were prepared to go forward with the case. Florida officials agreed.
“Those sentences should ensure he pursues another line of work when he gets out,” said Denis Dean, deputy prosecutor.
Price said he was in Florida to set up an exhibition football game for college players interested in playing professional football but the game fell through when an investor backed out at the last minute, leaving him with all the bills. Price said he was almost broke after paying to house and feed the players and coaches then learned his wife was ill in Springdale. Price said he drove the car to Arkansas because it was the only way he could get home. He planned to return the car and pay what he owed but could never get caught up enough financially.
“Things snowballed. I have not done this with criminal intent,” Price told the judge before he was sentenced. “I messed up. I should have contacted them sooner. Now my life is thrown away over a rental car.”
Scott Parks, Price’s public defender, argued criminal charges weren't warranted and said the case should have been handled as a civil case in Florida.
“He merely kept using it with hopes of making some money and taking it back to Florida,” Parks said. “It went on for way too long.”
Storey and prosecutors said the games Price claimed to be setting up were a scheme to attract kids from across the country to an event that was never actually set up. Players or agents were supposed to pay for the players to attend.
Price said during the trial he expected to make “six figures” had the game been successful.