PEOGA — A Nineveh man was arrested for receiving stolen auto parts after police found him sleeping in a stolen car parked in a church parking lot.
Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy Austin Schonfeld responded to the church on Peoga Road on Aug. 9 to check on a vehicle there when he discovered Andrew Jasper, 30, sleeping in the backseat. After the officer knocked on the driver-side window, Jasper woke up and opened the door. He told Schonfeld he was sleeping before he had to go to work in Trafalgar. He did not have identification on him, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Schonfeld reported he knew Jasper and that he lived on Ford Ridge Road. He told the officer he didn’t drive home because he ran out of gas and that the car was not his. Jasper told Schonfeld he was buying the car off a friend but would not give the friend’s name. Dispatch told Schonfeld that the car was reported stolen out of Marion County and that Jasper had a suspended driver’s license.
Jasper told police the friend he was buying the vehicle from said it was not stolen and that he had the title at some point, but it either caught fire or was left in a driveway, the affidavit states.
Deputy Chad Williams reported finding the title to the vehicle in a leather jacket that Jasper said belonged to him, along with two other titles in the driver’s side door that came back registered to the vehicle’s current owner, according to the affidavit.
While Jasper was in the booking area of the jail, Schonfeld reported finding registration for a motorcycle that one of the other two titles matched.
Jasper was charged Aug. 9 with receiving stolen auto parts, a Level 6 felony.
