A Nolanville man scheduled to face a jury Monday pleaded guilty to stealing two vehicles in Bell County in separate incidents in 2019 and 2022.
Justin Wade Sims, 44, pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in state prison. He will be sentenced in the 2022 incident on July 27 in 264th Judicial District Court. As part of a plea deal, the 2019 charge will be dropped, court records show.
Sims was released from the Bell County Jail after posting $20,000 bond for the 2019 charge and $15,000 bond for the 2022 charge, according to Bell County court records.
On May 10, 2019, Nolanville Police received a report from a utility worker that a person known as Justin Sims took and used a company-owned backhoe without permission.
“(The victim) reported that the backhoe is normally kept at Central Bell Fire & Rescue on North Main Street in Nolanville, but workers observed Sims remove the backhoe from the property,” according to an arrest affidavit.
Two witnesses told police they saw Sims take the backhoe on the night of May 9, 2019.
Belton police encountered Sims on Feb. 19, 2022, when they were dispatched to the 3300 block of North Main Street to investigate a report of a vehicle without license plates.
“Upon arrival, officers … observed a white Subaru parked with its lights on and engine running,” according to an arrest affidavit. “Officers made contact with the driver, who was later identified as Sims, who told officers he had recently purchased the vehicle … and had the vehicle’s title and receipt at home. He also explained that he was sitting in the parking lot waiting for his girlfriend, a resident of the apartment complex.”
However, when officers ran the vehicle through the system, officers noticed that a theft had been reported in Harker Heights on January 19, 2021.
The vehicle was registered to a deceased man who had been living in a nursing home before his death.
“There had been a burglary at (the deceased man’s) residence and the Subaru had been taken during the burglary,” according to the affidavit.
