{"id":12961,"date":"2025-10-20T23:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/12961\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T23:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:02:08","slug":"kia-car-salesman-in-houston-accused-of-stealing-nearly-70k-from-customers-through-dealership-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/12961\/","title":{"rendered":"Kia car salesman in Houston accused of stealing nearly $70K from customers through dealership scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">HOUSTON \u2013 A former car salesman is accused of running a months-long scheme that defrauded more than a dozen customers out of thousands of dollars while working at a Houston-area Kia dealership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">According to Harris County court records, Emil Conrad Parker, 67, has been charged with theft \u2014 aggregate and is currently wanted by authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Investigators said Parker worked as a car salesman at Freddie Kia Dealership, now operating as Bayway Kia, located at 11711 Gulf Freeway. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Between Aug. 2024 and Feb. 2025, Parker allegedly stole a total of $68,700 from 14 victims who believed they were making cash down payments toward vehicles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Court documents state Parker told customers he could help fix their bad credit through a Kia \u201ccredit repair program.\u201d He allegedly collected cash down payments and later requested more money for taxes, title, and registration fees, promising to complete their vehicle purchases once the process was finalized.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Instead, investigators said Parker stopped responding to the victims, and no vehicles were ever delivered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Court records show Parker was already out on bond for two similar cases, one for theft and another for unauthorized use of a vehicle, both connected to his employment at the same dealership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">In one case, a dealership manager reportedly told a victim that Parker had been fired for stealing from customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Parker also has previous convictions for theft and escape, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Anyone with information on Parker\u2019s whereabouts is urged to contact Houston police or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS (8477).<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 A former car salesman is accused of running a months-long scheme that defrauded more than a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[294,56,58,57,66,223,10826],"class_list":["post-12961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-crime","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-scheme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}