CEDAR CITY – A 19-year-old Cedar City man, arrested in December and charged with 19 counts of vehicle burglary, two counts of firearm theft, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of receiving stolen property, accepted a plea agreement Tuesday afternoon in the Iron County 5th District Court.
Of the 26 original charges, Reagan Matthew Gurbal pleaded guilty to four: second-degree felony theft; third-degree felony theft by receiving stolen property; and two class A misdemeanors for vehicle burglary.
Gurbal was arrested on Dec. 3 after the Cedar City Police Department connected him, through eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence, to at least 19 of 40 vehicle burglaries that took place between August 15 and October 18.
Gurbal admitted to burglarizing between 20 and 25 vehicles in just one night, according to a probable cause statement supporting his arrest. Gurbal and his underage accomplices would split up and meet back at his house to divvy up the goods after a night of “car hopping.”
Charger cords, GPS devices, money, electronics, jewelry and firearms were among the booty collected by the teenagers. Gurbal provided a place for the group of teens to meet both before and after each night of theft, and a location to “secret away” items that had been collected for the night.
Prior to his December arrest, on Oct. 18, Gurbal and another suspect in the burglaries left Utah and met up with four other Cedar City teens in Las Vegas the next day. While together, the six youth allegedly continued their crime spree through Las Vegas and parts of southern California until they were eventually apprehended in San Bernardino County.
Aware of Cedar City Police Department’s attempt to locate his whereabouts in connection with the Cedar City burglaries, Gurbal refused to turn himself in after being released from custody in southern California and would not disclose his location to authorities.
When Gurbal was arrested on Dec. 3, he was taken into custody and held on a $7,500 cash only bail at the Iron County Jail. As of Tuesday, Gurbal was still in custody.
Gurbal’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 24 at 9 a.m. in courtroom 1 of the Iron County 5th District Courthouse, 40 N. 100 East in Cedar City.
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Dang tweekers
Whenever you let gurbals out of their cage this kind of thing will happen.
Sure, technically a teen, but he’s an adult. Should have said man instead of teen in the title as you did first sentence of the article.
fundraiser?
I once had a gerbil who looked similarly a lot like this “teen”.
With all those charges, I’d take a plea bargain too. Dang tweekers