HABERSHAM CO. NEWS RELEASE
“There was a lot of sheriff’s office activity in the parking lot of the Habersham County Administration Building Wednesday morning after a stolen vehicle was found to be there.
Tax Commissioner June Black-Warren said her staff takes extra precautions to protect vehicle owners from fraud or theft.
“We had an individual to bring in some paperwork that appeared to be legitimate,” Black-Warren said. “When we started processing the paperwork, which included the title, a bill of sale, his driver’s license, and insurance, we put it into the DRIVES system, and it alerted us that it was a stolen vehicle.”
Georgia DRIVES is the Driver Record and Integrated Vehicle Enterprise System.
The tag office called the sheriff’s office, whose computer system also was showing that the vehicle was stolen, so deputies and investigators were dispatched.
“This is one of the reasons, too, that Habersham County along with some of the surrounding counties – not everybody, but a lot of the surrounding counties – do require bill of sales because the first thing we do is look at the signatures of the seller on the back of the title as well as the bill of sale to make sure they match, and if they do more than likely it’s a good sale,” Black-Warren said.
The extra document precaution did not play into Wednesday’s situation.
“These documents were in order, the seller’s signatures did match,” Black-Warren said. “The only problem with them we found out was the seller did not put the buyer’s name on either one of the documents. They were left open, so when the person stole the vehicle, they had the documents right there and they just filled their name in.”
“The sheriff’s department did impound the vehicle, and the person did go to jail,” Black-Warren said.
Information about the arrest will be forthcoming from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office.”
(Photo by Habersham Co. Public Information Officer Rob Moore)