Man Admits To Role In Auto Theft Ring

A Bedford Heights man admitted to being part of a in March.

John Jones, 41, pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in a pattern of corrupt behavior, grand theft and two counts of receiving stolen property Friday in Lake County Common Pleas Judge Eugene Lucci's court room.

Lucci did not sentence Jones Friday. Instead, he asked for a victim-impact statement and scheduled the sentencing for May 31.

Technically, Jones could receive any punishment from community control to 4 1/2 years in prison. However, the judge made it clear that Jones would be going behind bars.

"With your record, you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting community control," Lucci said.

Jones told the judge he had been to prison five times before. Most recently, he served a 6-month stint in 2011 for violating his parole on a gross sexual imposition conviction.

Jones has also been convicted of attempting to assault an officer, drug abuse, vehicle theft and receiving stolen property.

Jones and his codefendant, Curtis Wilder, were arrested in March by Mentor Police.

Police departments from Mentor, Solon, Twinsburg, Willoughby, Wickliffe and Bedford, as well as the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Cleveland FBI office had been tracking suspects in that particular auto theft ring for two weeks prior to the arrest, police said.

On Match 8, police tracked Wilder and Jones to the Diamond Center area of Mentor, Powers said.

The suspects drove their Jones's SUV out there and parked next to a Ford F-250, Powers said. When the owner of the truck walked away, the suspects removed its ignition cap and hotwired it, police said.

Police arrested Wilder and Jones as they drove away in the Tahoe and F-250, respectively.

In Jones's SUV, they also found tools and a nail gun that had been reported stolen earlier, prosecutors said.