SAN ANTONIO – A 25-year-old man is accused of stealing a $9,000 piece of equipment from a tractor trailer that belongs to his ex-employer, a southwest Bexar County gas and oil company.
Joel Gonzales was arrested Thursday in connection with the crime which was reported to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office in late September.
An arrest affidavit stated that someone unhooked the trailer section from a tractor-trailer parked on the J3 Oil and Gas Company's lot in the 13700 block of Somerset Road late on the night of Sept. 26.
The person then drove off in the tractor section which is valued at more than $125,000 and equipped with a GPS tracking system, the affidavit stated.
Detectives said the tracking system showed the truck was taken to a location where it remained for more than an hour, then returned to the company's lot.
The affidavit stated that a mechanic later noticed that a $9,000 pneumatic blower had been removed from the big rig.
Detectives using the coordinates captured by the GPS tracking system located the blower at another lot already attached to Gonzales' truck, the affidavit stated.
They said they also discovered that Gonzales used to work for J3 and had resigned recently. He was arrested Thursday on charges of theft and vehicle theft.