He got out of jail bail-free last week. But he didn't want to walk home. His solution landed him back in jail with no bail.
By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
Published July 22, 2005
LAND O'LAKES - Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who got out of jail and needed a ride home?
Authorities say he stole one.
Within an hour of his July 14 release from the Pasco County jail, authorities say Scott Robert Lloyd walked across U.S. 41, broke into two pickup trucks, ransacked one and drove off in the other.
Thursday he was right back where he started: jail.
Lloyd did it, he told a deputy, because he didn't want to walk all the way home to Zephyrhills.
No, really.
"From the time he got out of jail, walked down the road, saw the trucks," said sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin, "that's as long as it took him."
For truck owner Eddie Perez, the day started out as any other. The retired shop teacher woke at 8:30 a.m., went out for the newspaper and to feed his cat, Blue.
But for the first time in 40 years: no pickup.
Thursday, a puzzled Perez could laugh about it.
"I mean if you were out of jail what would you do?" he said. "When you get out jail, what's the last thing you want to do? Stay around?"
The Pasco Sheriff's Office said for a released county jail inmate to be accused of re-offending so quickly is rare.
"I think most people serve their time in jail or prison and they want to get back on the straight and narrow and start their lives over," Tobin said, "not go back to crime within an hour or two of getting out."
"It amazes me."
According to a sheriff's report, Lloyd broke into a Ford pickup owned by Perez's son before stealing the dad's truck. Deputies say he stole two tackle boxes, a camera and the spare key to dad's pickup.
Lloyd, 33, has a long criminal record that starts in 1994 on charges of aggravated battery, assault, theft, larceny and battery on a law enforcement officer.
In January 2004 he was released from the Hillsborough County jail, then re-arrested in Pasco County on July 13 on trespassing charges.
Lloyd, of 4904 Garden St., was released without being required to post bail; deputies think he stole the truck between 10 p.m. and midnight for the 30-mile ride home.
He was arrested Tuesday on charges of grand theft auto and auto burglary, Tobin said, after an anonymous witness saw him trying to hide the pickup at 39435 Bay Ave. in Crystal Springs.
Within 30 minutes of discovering the theft, Eddie Perez was handing out fliers looking for his prized, detailed maroon 2003 Ford Ranger. It had brown and yellow pinstripes and a caricature of the former shop teacher standing on a pile of wood, ax in hand, on the back tailgate with the slogan "Got Wood?"
Someone tried to paint over the pinstripes, Perez said, pushed in the roof, scratched the passenger's side, removed the tailgate, put on the spare tire and drove about 300 miles on it.
"(With) all of that pinstriping, I don't see how he could figure he could get away with it," Perez said, then points to his rented Kia. "I mean, you steal that and who's going to notice?"
Inmates often cross U.S. 41 to get to Brad's Bail Bonds, hoping to arrange a ride there. The building is on Perez's property, and his home is right behind it.
But the company said Lloyd was not one of the men asking for a taxi that night.
Lloyd is back in jail, in lieu of $10,000 bail. He won't get any help from Brad's Bail Bonds.
