Vandals knock down walls at Seven Oaks building site
Pasco deputies arrest an 18-year-old accused of damaging construction equipment and tearing down walls.
By ANNE BROACHE
Published June 29, 2004
WESLEY CHAPEL - An 18-year-old man was arrested Friday, accused of helping as many as four people to cause more than $100,000 in damage to equipment at a construction site last weekend.
Ronney Joe Dixon of 6919 Angus Valley Drive in Wesley Chapel was charged with first-degree grand theft and criminal mischief. He was being held at Land O'Lakes jail in lieu of $20,000 bail.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office anticipated making other arrests shortly, spokesman Doug Tobin said.
The sheriff's report listed a 17-year-old and a 22-year-old man as co-defendants, but they have not yet been arrested, Tobin said.
Reports state that sometime between 5 p.m. June 19 and 5 a.m. June 20, vandals entered a construction area at the north end of Ancient Oaks Boulevard in the Seven Oaks development.
The responding officer reported that heavy construction equipment showed signs of tampering.
Several street lights and recently planted palm trees had been knocked down. New playground equipment and metal park benches also appeared to have been smashed, the report stated.
Two houses that were under construction had their walls knocked down, reports stated.
Large tire tracks leading up to the wrecked goods indicated that vandals had used heavy construction equipment to do the damage, the report stated.
Vandals did nearly $100,000 in damage to several pieces of construction equipment, including a steel-wheel roller, a miniexcavator and a tractor. The miniexcavator's ignition wires had been cut and twisted together, reports stated, and other vehicles had flat tires or leaked fluid.
Among the vehicles was a 1996 CAT front-loader worth $75,000 that was later found in a retention pond just west of Ancient Oaks Boulevard.
Steve Stimac, a superintendent for Larkin Contracting, which owns the equipment that was stolen and vandalized, told sheriff's deputies he found a wallet lying outside one of the burglarized trucks at the site. Inside were Ronney Joe Dixon's vehicle registration and insurance cards, reports stated.
Gregg Belmore, construction superintendent for the Seven Oaks subdivision, said his company doesn't stand for such vandalism and was happy to see an arrest had been made.
"It definitely slows us down, and it ruins our budget," he said.
Sheriff's deputies suspected that the incident was linked to two bouts of construction site vandalism that occurred not long before this one, said Tobin, the spokesman.
Sometime between June 15 at 8:30 p.m. and June 16 at 6:30 a.m., vandals entered a construction site at Old Pasco Road and Foamflower Boulevard in Wesley Chapel, reports stated.
They managed to hot-wire a John Deere tractor and drive it around the property, hitting, uprooting and damaging trees and saplings along the way. They also struck and destroyed a portable toilet on an adjacent property. Finally, they drove the tractor into a hole, burrowing it so deep that it could not be recovered, reports stated.
Sometime between June 16 at 7 p.m. and June 17 at 4:30 a.m., vandals drove a $250,000 Volvo earth mover into a hole at a construction site adjacent to the intersection of Boyette and Overpass roads, also in Wesley Chapel. They also damaged other construction equipment at the site, reports stated.
Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to call the Sheriff's Office toll free at 1-800-854-2862, ext. 5117.
