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ValuCar founder finally arrested

Almost five years after an FBI raid of the used-car chain, state officials have filed a charge of grand theft.

By BILL COATS
Published February 26, 2005

Five years ago, ValuCar was a young, high-flying used-car chain doing $70-million a year in business.

That is, until FBI agents swarmed onto the car lots and seized enough records to fill a warehouse. Hapless customers discovered their extended warranties were worthless and the loans on their trade-ins had not been paid off.

This week, authorities finally made an arrest. Nelson Valdes Jr., ValuCar's founder, was charged Wednesday with grand theft, punishable by as much as 30 years in prison. In a news release, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement accused Valdes of directing employees to deceive Ford Motor Credit Corp., which loaned ValuCar money to buy vehicles for its inventory.

"What they were trying to do was conceal the sale of the vehicle from Ford so they would not have to pay the money back to Ford," FDLE spokesman Rick Morera said.

Ford Credit audited its ValuCar arrangement and determined 182 vehicles it had financed weren't accounted for, the FDLE said. That created a net loss of nearly $1.7-million.

The FBI raid occurred on June 28, 2000.

Two weeks later, Ford declared ValuCar in default of nearly $1.5-million in loans. On the same day, Ernie Haire III, a Tampa Ford dealer and a partner in ValuCar, loaned ValuCar $1-million, a debt that became public after ValuCar declared bankruptcy. The FDLE said Haire repaid Ford Credit for some of the losses. But Ford representatives told investigators last year that the lender had lost $908,720 "due to Valdes' theft of their security interest in ValuCar's inventory," the FDLE statement said.

After ValuCar's collapse, Haire told the Times, "It's cost me millions."

A variety of lawsuits have followed. Valdes filed for personal bankruptcy in 2001 and was protected from creditors, including legal judgments. Three months ago, Valdes and his wife paid $635,000 for a house in New Tampa's Cory Lake Isles and sold their bayfront home in Apollo Beach for $1.06-million.

Valdes, 45, surrendered at the Manatee County Sheriff's Department and was released on his own recognizance. He did not return a phone call from the Times.

The FDLE's Morera said the complexity of the case was the reason 41/2 years had passed between the FBI's raid and Valdes' arrest.

"It was just the sheer volume of documentation that was taken back in 2000," Morera said. "It was just a warehouse full."

The FBI never publicly disclosed why it raided the Bradenton-based ValuCar. Search warrants were sealed. But Valdes had some curious associates.

Vincent LoScalzo, who was accused by law enforcement officials more than a decade ago of being a Tampa mob boss, worked for ValuCar, buying vehicles at wholesale auctions. And in 1998 Valdes had borrowed $250,000 from Anthony "Tony" Montello, an Oldsmar man who was indicted two months later in an $11-million international investment scam. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges against Montello, who was in fragile health and died in 2003.

The case against Valdes is to be prosecuted by Tampa attorneys working in the Florida Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution. The investigation remains open, Morera said.

"We just kind of let it take us wherever it leads," he said.

Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 26, 2005, 01:14:15]