Troopers say plow driver stole tools

By ANDREW WELLNER

Frontiersman.com

WASILLA — A man with an apparently valid contract to winterize an occupied home under foreclosure also helped himself to tools before he left.

According to documents Alaska State Trooper Anderw Ballesteros filed in the case against Raymond G. Elliot, 48, Wasilla, the victim was the first to report the alleged theft at 3:10 p.m., Jan 3.

The home in question is on Clarion Avenue, in the neighborhoods off of Foothills Boulevard in the Knik-Goose Bay Road area.

The man said he’d left his house for a short while and returned to find a path plowed up the driveway and tools and an air compressor piled up near the garage door.

“It appeared someone might be returning to steal the remaining items,” Ballesteros writes.

Among the missing items are an impact wrench, a 12-foot folding ladder, a camera with a flash, a toolbox and a rolling battery charger.

The owner told Ballesteros he was heading to Fairbanks to obtain money to get the house out of foreclosure.

Ballesteros and Trooper Tim Cronin hung cameras around the house to see if they could get photographs of the plow truck returning.

Troopers also talked to a neighbor who reported seeing the truck. Ballesteros writes that the neighbor called back the next day to say he had seen the truck again and had talked to the driver. The driver said he’d been contracted by the bank to winterize the house. The plow driver gave the neighbor a copy of the work order for the property. The neighbor gave it to Cronin.

One of the two hidden cameras recorded video of the plow truck, on the side of which was a phone number troopers used to track down Elliot.

Ballesteros writes that when troopers arrived at Elliot’s house he told them he’d taken the things and gathered them up for them. All-told, troopers say he allegedly stole $3,000 worth of items.

As of Wednesday afternoon there was an arrest warrant in Elliot’s file, meaning he was still at-large. Troopers would like to charge him with theft, burglary and criminal mischief.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.