An 82-year-old woman in Solon, Ohio, told police on Sunday, Oct. 18, that her 51-year-old son had traded her car for drugs. She said he had her permission to use the car, according to Solon police as reported by FOX 8 Cleveland, and that he gave it to someone she did not know in exchange for the drugs.
The car turned up the next day, and three stolen cartons of cigarettes are why. Police said that shortly before 9:30 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 19, the 7-Eleven on Aurora Road reported that a man had taken three cartons of cigarettes worth about $375. Store video helped officers identify him, an arrest warrant was issued, and police said he was later found in Cleveland in the car he had reportedly received in the drug trade. Both men were arrested. One was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and the other with theft, and the car went back to its owner.
FOX 8 did not say which man faces which charge, and I could not find a Solon police release or court docket that does. Everything above is the police account, and charges are allegations. Nothing I found shows a plea or a ruling in either case, or even a hearing date.
One word decides the car charge: consent
Ohio’s unauthorized-use statute, Revised Code 2913.03, makes it a crime to knowingly use or operate a motor vehicle “without the consent of the owner or person authorized to give consent.” The statute says nothing about a borrower passing the car along. In the police account, the owner said yes to her son and had never met the person who ended up behind the wheel. Whether her permission stretched that far is the question a court would have to answer, and the same section gives a defendant an opening: it is an affirmative defense if the person reasonably believed the owner would have authorized the use. A man handed a car by someone who was himself allowed to drive it has an obvious argument to make…