Union County Man Charged With Theft of Landscaping Equipment

By Michelle Sahn

Manalapan police arrested a Union County man who they say stole landscaping equipment from trailers as crews worked on customers’ properties in four Monmouth County communities.

Jose Tavarez, 26, a former Freehold Borough resident who now lives in Hillside, was arrested after a two-month long multi-jurisdictional investigation, police said.

He is facing charges in Manalapan, Holmdel, Colts Neck and Marlboro.

According to a news release from Manalapan Deputy Police Chief Michael Fountain:

From mid-June until the end of July, several landscape companies reported the theft of equipment from their landscape trailers.

The items were stolen as crews worked on customers’ properties.

By mid-July, Manalapan detectives identified Tavaraz as the suspect, but they could not find him.

Then, during the early morning hours of Aug. 4, a resident at the Covered Bridge development in Manalapan called police because he saw a man fleeing after a car alarm went off in his neighborhood.

He gave police a description of that man and his vehicle.

A short time later, police spotted that vehicle in the Wawa parking lot on Union Hill Road. They arrested Tavarez, who was wanted on outstanding warrants from Old Bridge and Howell municipal courts.

Detectives from Manalapan, Marlboro, Colts Neck and Holmdel charged Tavarez with burglary and theft of landscape equipment.

In Manalapan, police also charged him with multiple counts of burglary and thefts to vehicles. The proceeds from vehicle burglaries were recovered from Tavarez’s own vehicle.

Tavarez was sent to the Monmouth County jail, Freehold Township, with bail set at more than $100,000.