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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A St. Petersburg<\/a> man is searching for answers after his car was stolen while he was away for work.<\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n Leon Goins said he was the proud owner of a vintage car for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n Recently, Goins was working to restore his vehicle to driving conditions, so it was parked outside of his garage.<\/p>\n “A vintage 1977 Buick Electra that I had parked here at my garage with a car cover on it, backed in, as you see\u2026 the Jeep was removed without my permission and sold to a scrapyard,” Goins said.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Goins’ car was swiped from under his nose.<\/p>\n “A 1977 Buick Electra, original condition that I’ve owned for over 20 years,” Goins said. “The sentimental value.”<\/p>\n Goins said someone provided false documents to a tow truck company saying they owned the car, so a tow truck took his Buick and delivered it to a scrap metal yard where it was sold.<\/p>\n “They told me I could take back my car once I arrived and that there would be a few dents and dings to it,” Goins said. “But when I arrived, it had no wheels and had been totaled.”<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The person accused in this case is now facing a felony charge for falsifying documents, but not theft.<\/p>\n Goins still does not understand.<\/p>\n Charles Gallagher is an attorney at Gallagher & Associates Law Firm. He said there is still time for the charges to change with more investigation.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “I think once you have those facts nailed down, that’s sufficient for a theft charge, and for a prosecution for theft,” Gallagher\u00a0said.<\/p>\n As for the tow truck company and scrapyard, Gallagher\u00a0said they could be liable for not verifying the ownership of the car.<\/p>\n “Everyone’s got a duty of care, whether it be a tow yard, whether it be a tow truck driver, whether there be a scrapyard,” Gallagher said.\u00a0“And when you think people are not meeting that duty of care, pump the brakes, think twice, and see whether or not there might be a basis for some liability against those actors.”<\/p>\n Goins said this happened to a neighbor’s family member, and they stopped it.<\/p>\n Why you should care:<\/p>\n Goins wants people to know that this is a real problem.<\/p>\n “I really just wanted to make the public aware that this is a common occurrence,” Goins said.<\/p>\n What we don’t know:<\/p>\n FOX 13 reached out to the state attorney’s office to ask why theft charges haven’t been filed, and if the investigation is ongoing. We are waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story was gathered from interviews with a St. Pete resident and an attorney at Gallagher & Associates Law Firm.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A St. Petersburg man is searching for answers after his car was stolen while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-263050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vlcsnap-2026-05-07-23h58m49s846.png\")
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