Man in Car Crash Was Driving Stolen Car, Police Say

A Slatington man involved in a “severe” car crash during a March weekend is in jail – not because of the crash but because he was driving a car stolen in Bethlehem Township court records say.

Steven J. Brad, 33, was driving a white 2005 Volkswagen Golf owned by a Miller Heights resident when the speeding car left the roadway and hit a tree, the records say.

The owner told police that Brad – a friend of her friend – had taken her to the store that weekend because she wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t up to driving.

But she also told police “she absolutely did not give [Brad] or anyone else permission to be in possession of her vehicle,” the records say.

The case is being handled by Det. Chad Wasserman, who is assigned to the Lehigh County Auto Theft Task Force and was designated a special county detective of the Northampton County District Attorney’s office.

With the approval of assistant district attorney James Augustine, Wasserman filed charges of theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle against Brad.

Brad, of 409 W. South St. in the northern Lehigh County borough, was in Northampton County Prison in lieu of $50,000 bail. He was arraigned Tuesday afternoon by on-duty District Judge Jackie Taschner of Palmer Township.

Wasserman writes in a criminal complaint:

The Golf’s owner reported her car stolen to Bethlehem Township police on March 25, a Monday.

She said she was letting a male friend stay with her for a few days and the friend had another man with him. She didn’t know the other man but said he went by the name of “Brad.”

She said she had not been feeling well and spent most of the weekend of Saturday, March 23 in bed. She said the last time she saw her car was on March 23, when she asked “Brad” to drive her to a store because she was medicated.

Once she got home she went back to bed, she said.

On Monday, March 25, she noticed her car was missing when she was leaving for work.

At some point, Wasserman got a call from the woman’s insurance company that her car had been involved in a “severe” accident in Slatington on Sunday, March 24. Wasserman learned the driver was Steven Brad.

The woman identified Brad after Wasserman showed her a photo of him.