She stole his heart, so he stole cars, police say
The course of true love never did run smooth, but this week it ran rougher than usual for a man suspected of stealing 26 cars in order to visit his sweetheart.
The arrest of Antonio Moreno, 31, of Inglewood followed a relationship that Santa Barbara police described as “stormy.”
Acting on a tip, officers from a regional auto-theft task force arrested Moreno on Wednesday near his home while he was behind the wheel of a 1988 Toyota Camry. It was one of 15 Camrys built between 1987 and 1991 that had been stolen since January from his girlfriend’s Santa Barbara neighborhood, police said.
Eight more Camrys of the same vintage had been stolen in Inglewood or Hawthorne and found abandoned in that Santa Barbara neighborhood, according to police. During the same period, three old Nissan Sentras in the neighborhood also went missing.
Police say that Moreno, who didn’t have a car or a driver’s license, was using a simple device that starts Japanese cars of a certain age.
His motive was not financial but romantic, police said.
He was “stealing vehicles as transportation to pursue their relationship,” according to a statement from Lt. Paul McCaffrey, a Santa Barbara Police Department spokesman.
Moreno was being held in Los Angeles on suspicion of auto theft before an expected transfer to Santa Barbara, where he is to face additional auto theft charges.
His girlfriend, who was unidentified, was questioned and released.
Meanwhile, the couple’s courtship appeared to have reached a dead end. Despite the lengths Moreno allegedly went to for love, police said the girlfriend had been trying to dump him for weeks.
