HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A man allegedly stole a car to “check out his friends” and changed the license plate to avoid getting caught.
On Monday afternoon, the Guam Police Department received a complaint of a car being stolen in Dededo outside a man’s residence. The victim told police, upon viewing video surveillance, he saw two males going around the parking lot, opening his car door and driving away with the vehicle.
Officers then viewed the footage and observed three individuals walking to different cars and checking if the doors were locked. One of the men was identified as 19-year-old Neveah Tamar James, according to charging documents.
The following day, the victim provided police information that he saw his vehicle pulling into one of the parking garages at Micronesia Mall and saw James and a woman going inside the mall. Later on Tuesday, James and the woman were detained, the complaint stated.
The officers discovered the license plate on the man’s vehicle was taken from another car.
The woman stated James and another friend were in the parking lot of the victim’s residence and took the victim’s car to various locations and picked up some friends, the complaint stated.
James told police initially that he stole the victim’s car on his own but later stated he and a friend opened the car and found the key to the vehicle inside.
“The defendant then told officers that he stole the car to check out his friends and picked them up. He later parked the vehicle near the Home Center in Dededo and went home. He then took the license plate from an abandoned vehicle near his residence and swapped the license plates to the vehicle with the intentions to not get caught by either police or the owner,” according to the complaint.
James then explained he went to the mall to hang out with his friends when he was caught by GPD.
James was charged with theft of an automobile as a second-degree felony and vehicle without identification as a misdemeanor.
Neveah Tamar James
