Monday, April 23, 2018

Collin County, Texas Sheriff Office Contact Info

VTC&CCC was recently forwarded an email between a Victim and an Investigator from the Collin County, Texas Sheriff's Office: Criminal Investigation Division, concerning Tim Carroll and Carroll Custom Cadillac. The Victim is someone unknown to this blog -- in other words, the Victim never contacted us -- which is fine -- I'm just trying to provide some context.

The email is reproduced below. Note VTC&CCC did not receive the photographs mentioned:
Tim has essentially gone out of business. He is being evicted from his rental property, and as far as I can tell, he hasn’t really done any work on cars for the past several weeks. I have absolutely no idea what condition your vehicle is in. For all I know, the engine is completely out.  I did take a couple of photos when I was out there (attached).

Another car owner has inquired about criminal charges against Tim. Texas law is pretty clear, when you have a verbal or written contract with someone to do work and they at least begin the work, then it is a civil matter. So, Tim can be sued in civil court if you’re interested in trying recover anything you’ve lost.

In the meantime, I thought you may want to come recover your vehicle. You will have to make arrangements to do that, as the SO cannot get involved in civil matters. However, if you’ll let me know when you’ll be in town, I can go out there with you to make certain everything remains calm. I also have Tim’s wife’s number, as she has been very helpful in allowing us onto the property.

Let me know. My contact info appears below.

Inv. Steve Goodman, CFE
Criminal Investigation Division
Collin County Sheriff’s Office
4300 Community Ave.
McKinney, TX 75071
972.547.5100 Main
972.547.5113 Direct
Obviously, the good news is that the local cops are aware of what The Carroll's have been up to.

My complaint is that Texas law considers this type of activity a "civil matter." What kind of society do we live in, which encourages cops and district attorneys and the court system to go after YOU with every resource available to them for driving 5,10,15 or miles over the speed limit when you haven't injured anyone or for not wearing a seat belt or any other number of victimless crimes (a victimless "crime" is a crime where there is no injured party. A crime requires a corpus delicti), yet allows someone to set up shop and rip off many people from all over the country to the tune of thousands of dollars to respond, 'it's a civil matter.'

Who writes these laws? Why are they encouraging this type activity? What's to discourage anyone with a criminal intent from setting up shop and ripping off people from all over the country (actual injured party and a corpus delicti) -- when they know there's no risk of criminal liability and not much risk of being sued by someone who lives thousands of miles away?

I'm not picking on just Texas as I've stumbled across this "it's a civil matter" nonsense right here in Louisiana. All states are probably pretty much the same. 

We deserve higher quality people serving in state legislatures.

OK that's my rant. If you're a Victim please contact the cop listed above. Although it likely won't result in any criminal charges at least they will begin to understand the scale of this scam. Who knows, they may know a Fed or someone who might be interested in following up.  

No comments:

Post a Comment