ST. GEORGE — Officers in St. George responded to a call involving a car that crashed in California after a family member loaned it for what was to be two hours.
On June 30, officers arrested 35-year-old Chadam Day Mihlberger, who was booked into jail on third-degree felony unlawful control of a vehicle for more than 24 hours.
The charge was submitted to the Washington County Attorney’s Office following a call to police from an individual reporting that a family member did not return with their vehicle, according to charging documents filed with the court.
The caller said they loaned the suspect the vehicle on June 21, when Mihlberger asked to borrow the car to make a trip to the store to buy a pair of shoes. The caller also said they told the suspect to return the vehicle within two hours.
After the suspect had not returned several hours later, the caller was unable to reach him, despite calling his phone multiple times.
Sometime after midnight, the report states, Mihlberger called the reporting party saying he was in California with his wife and said he had crashed the vehicle and was unable to drive it back to Utah, and he returned a short time later without the car.
The officer also noted that as of June 30, the vehicle was still in California.
When officers tracked down Mihlberger, the suspect declined to speak to police and he was arrested and transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility on the felony charge.
The officer also noted the suspect not only kept the vehicle for more than two hours, but he also wrecked it, rendering it inoperable.
The suspect remains in custody as of the writing of this report.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.