One more theft case for PV man

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

July 12, 2008 09:00 pm

— Bond was posted Friday allowing a Pauls Valley man to leave county jail one week after being arrested on the very same burglary related charge that put him behind bars for a time last year.
The lone charge now facing Michael Dean McCarty, 38, is having possession of burglary tools.
It was in early 2007 when McCarty was hit with that same criminal count and four theft allegations after a local building was burglarized.
This time McCarty ran into trouble after he was stopped by a county deputy who observed him fail to use a signal when turning a vehicle at the corner of Chickasaw and Charles streets on July 4.
During the traffic stop the deputy, Jeff Poteet, reported seeing some copper in the vehicle’s back seat.
McCarty claims the materials came from a trailer where he had been working, according to an affidavit filed in Garvin County District Court.
Knowing McCarty’s recent history, Poteet asked if he had any burglary tools with him at that very moment.
Voluntarily shown to the officer were a pry bar, broken screwdriver, socket set and flashlight from the rear compartment.
Then came a question about anything in the vehicle’s trunk.
“The trunk was full of stripped out burnt copper and a large amount of round oil field reda cable,” Poteet stated in the affidavit.
According to the deputy, a fresh and thick coat of oil was the cable while the copper wire appeared to be freshly stripped out.
Also seen in the trunk were several pairs of gloves.
McCarty claimed the materials belonged to a Rosedale area resident who he worked for at the time.
The claim didn’t prevent his arrest as McCarty was taken into custody on the complaints of possessing burglary tools and having stolen property.
In was in January 2007 when McCarty was arrested for stealing such items as electrical wires and supplies from a vacant series of buildings formerly housing businesses in the 2300 block of West Grant, which is the north side of the Valley Plaza.
McCarty was found by police officers after they were alerted to a suspicious vehicle going behind the unoccupied buildings.
The officers reported finding some stolen items in McCarty’s vehicle, along with a number of tools typically used to commit burglaries.
A series of guilty and no contest pleas as part of an agreement with prosecutors led to McCarty receiving a seven-year prison term with all of it suspended except for a five-month period in county jail.
He was also ordered at that time to enter a 45-day in-patient rehabilitation program when released from jail.