Troopers bust burglar on ATV

WASILLA — Rolling down Bogard Road wearing a stolen jacket and riding a stolen four-wheeler loaded with stolen tools, a 30-year-old man wound up in jail early Wednesday morning.

According to court papers Alaska State Trooper Jason Crockett filed in the case against Thomas Hofmann II, at 1:56 a.m., the trooper spotted the Yamaha four-wheeler headed eastbound on Bogard Road driving in the road, which is not allowed.

Crockett pulled the four-wheeler over and the driver, who turned out to be Hofmann, jumped off the vehicle and put both arms in the air.

“I asked him if he had any weapons on his person and he said no, and I had him put his arms down,” Crockett writes.

Hofmann told Crockett he borrowed the four-wheeler from his friend Mike, with whom he worked construction but had had a falling out, after which he’d grabbed all his tools and left.

“I pat searched Hoffmann II and felt a plastic baggie in his front right jacket pocket with what felt like pills in it. Hofmann II’s left front jacket pocket was full of 20-gauge shotgun shells,” Crockett wrote.

The jacket had another person’s name on the front and company name on the back. Hofmann said it wasn’t his. A second pat down revealed a sheathed hunting knife Hofmann hadn’t told troopers about. At this point, he was handcuffed and put in a patrol car.

Troopers checked on Hofmann’s friend “Mike” and talked to someone at his house who said Hofmann hadn’t been there in three weeks and that Mike didn’t own a four-wheeler. Troopers searched the bags on the four-wheeler in an attempt to find out who owned the vehicle. They found a disassembled shotgun and a phone, headset, GPS and paperwork from an airplane. Tracking down that plane’s tail number led them to the owner of a shop and a hangar who hadn’t yet discovered he’d been ripped off.

Hofmann was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on theft, burglary and weapons misconduct charges. As of Saturday morning he was still there.