A Weirsdale man was arrested for theft after refusing to return a vehicle that an acquaintance let him borrow at the beginning of March.
An officer responded to a home Wood Duck Lane regarding a stolen vehicle, according to an arrest report from the Fruitland Park Police Department. The male victim advised that 37-year-old Richard Allen Pettis was allowed to borrow his 2011 Ford Escape for only two days on March 1.
After Pettis did not return the vehicle, the victim tried several times to have him bring it back. Pettis refused to return the vehicle after about a month, so the victim requested to report the vehicle stolen. The vehicle had since been reported on the LPR camera system multiple times in the Leesburg area, the report said.
The LPD later found the vehicle in Leesburg, with Pettis in the driver’s seat. He was taken out of the vehicle and restrained, after which the officer read his rights, the report said…