LIBERTY COUNTY \u2014 A stolen excavator worth approximately $45,000 has been recovered following a coordinated investigation involving the Liberty County and Galveston County sheriff’s offices.<\/p>\n
Michael Jakopic, 51, of Zavalla, is charged with theft of property valued between $30,000 and $150,000. <\/p>\n
Liberty County jail records reviewed by KFDM show he has been released after posting a $20,000 bond.<\/p>\n
The investigation began July 13 after the owner reported a 2020 Caterpillar 303.5 ECR excavator stolen from the area of FM 2518 and FM 787 in Cleveland, according to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office learned someone was attempting to sell the excavator and notified Liberty County authorities. <\/p>\n
Working with Galveston County Auto Theft investigators, deputies determined the equipment was being transported from Zavalla into Liberty County.<\/p>\n
A deputy later spotted a black Dodge Ram 3500 towing the excavator westbound on SH 105 and stopped the truck near CR 2073. <\/p>\n
According to the sheriff’s office, Jakopic told deputies he was on his way to trade the excavator for a skid steer loader but could not provide proof he owned the equipment.<\/p>\n
Deputies said the excavator’s serial number matched the one reported stolen. <\/p>\n
The equipment was recovered and returned to its owner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIBERTY COUNTY \u2014 A stolen excavator worth approximately $45,000 has been recovered following a coordinated investigation involving the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-398855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398855","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=398855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}