Thief steals landscaper’s lawn equipment, then tries to sell it back, Illinois cops say

A Beach Park, Illinois, landscaper woke up Wednesday to find that someone had stolen his lawn equipment, police said.

The burglar had cut the lock off his trailer and taken five backpack blowers, two chainsaws and a concrete saw. The man called police that morning to report the crime, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

Just a few hours later, Waukegan resident Angelo Rodriquez, 53, called the man -- who he knew had a landscaping business -- to sell some equipment he recently acquired, police said. When the man looked at Rodriguez’s photos of the tools, he recognized them as the same equipment stolen from his trailer, police said.

When the Sheriff’s Office learned that Rodriguez had the equipment, it set up an undercover investigation to pose as potential buyers, police said. The detectives met with Rodriguez to “buy” the equipment and positively identified the stolen items, police said.

The detectives arrested Rodriguez at the scene. However, he told police he wasn’t feeling well, so an ambulance took him to the hospital.

As soon as Rodriguez was discharged, he tried to run from sheriff’s deputies, police said. They caught him before he got out of the hospital and took him to jail, police said.

Rodriguez was charged with theft, resisting an officer and driving with a suspended license.

This story was originally published June 20, 2019 at 6:45 PM.