The Wyoming Highway Patrol says it found two Colorado men trying to smuggle a pair of stolen Lamborghinis through southern Wyoming last month.
Andrew Adam Blackman, 35, and Dassman Fadil, 32, each face one count of felony theft, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines, on suspicion of shutting off the GPS trackers on two Utah rental Lamborghinis and smuggling them through Wyoming.
Their case rose to the felony-level Carbon County district Court on Thursday.
Pinnacle Of Performance
Court documents say at least one of the cars was speeding in excess of 100 mph, but Lamborhinis can go double that with ease, said Vince Bodiford, publisher of TheWeekendDrive.com.
He told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the two cars involved and impounded by the WHP appear to be a 2019 white Huracán Roadster and a 2015 green Aventador.
“Both of these cars are really at the pinnacle of performance, of any car,” said Bodiford, adding that he’s driven both models and gloried in the sound and feel of their turbocharged engines.
One car magazine timed the Huracán, which has 602 horsepower, at 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Another timed the Aventador (700 horsepower) at 2.8 seconds.
If there’s something troubling about them, it’s that a driver might get to 140 mph without realizing it because they’re designed to handle speed with such ease, Bodiford said.
“You could be driving in these cars and not have a realistic sense of speed,” he said. “What may feel like you’re going 80 or 90 mph in a normal street car — you’re going 140, or 150, or faster in these cars. And it just feels like you’re out on a Sunday drive.”
A lot of drivers will “run out of skill before they run out of road,” he added.
Both Rentals
The investigation started May 26 at about 11:34 a.m., when Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Jay Scheel, of the Rawlins division, received a complaint via dispatch that one white Lamborghini and one green Lamborghini were speeding through Wyoming on Interstate 80, though they weren’t supposed to leave Utah, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed in the case.
The reporting party, the cars’ owner Joseph Lober of New Port Richey, Florida, had reported both cars stolen from the North Salt Lake, Utah, area, the affidavit says.
Lober told law enforcement he’d not heard from a third and fourth man, also from Colorado, who had rented the cars.
The men who had originally rented the cars are not charged in a Wyoming criminal court. It is unclear if they are different men or false identities masking the men now charged.
At 18 minutes after noon, Rawlins Police Department Lt. Jared Frakes stopped the 2019 white Lamborghini in Carbon County.
Blackman was reportedly driving; Fadil was reportedly sitting in the passenger seat.
Blackman had a suspended driver’s license out of Colorado, so Frakes arrested him on those grounds, the affidavit says.
Officer Amber Yardley of the Rawlins Police Department detained Fadil for further investigation into the alleged thefts.
There She Goes
Frake and Yardley told Trooper Scheel that just after they’d stopped the white Lamborghini, the 2015 green Lamborghini had reportedly ridden passed them while on a flatbed tow truck.
WHP Trooper Steven Watson helped stop the tow truck. Scheel talked with the tower, who owns a tow company out of Salt Lake City.
The tower is also not charged in a Wyoming criminal court as of this writing.
The tow truck driver told police that a man called “John,” with no further information, contacted him and told him to pick up the green Lamborghini on Silver Creek Road in Park City, Utah, and take it to an address in Thornton, Colorado.
A card holder whose address was on Preston Road in Dallas, Texas, paid the tow truck driver $2,900 for this job, the latter reportedly told the troopers.
The troopers escorted the tow truck back to the WHP office in Rawlins for further investigation.
Meanwhile …
Meanwhile, at Frakes’ traffic stop, he told Blackman of Blackman’s Miranda rights, the document says.
Blackman allegedly told Frakes he was allowed to drive the car by his friend who had rented it in Salt Lake City.
Blackman also said he’d “barely met” his passenger, Fadil, when they were still in Salt Lake City, but that they were going for a drive in the cars to Denver, then back to Salt Lake City that same day.
Along the way, Blackman continued, the green Lamborghini got a flat tire, so they waited for the wrecker from Utah for several hours, then asked the tower to tow the ailing car to Denver.
Next Up
The troopers arrived at the Rawlins WHP office at about 1:33 that afternoon.
Yardley arrived there 45 minutes later with a tow truck driver (this one from Rawlins) hauling the white Lamborghini, and Fadil, the affidavit says.
Scheel interviewed Fadil, who reportedly said he’d flown from Washington, DC, to Salt Lake City, but wanted to go to Denver to see his girlfriend.
Fadil said he didn’t know Blackman and had just been introduced to him by someone named “Cedrick.”
Someone told Fadil that Blackman would give Fadil a ride to Denver, Fadil reportedly told police.
Fadil said he didn’t know the cars were stolen. He’d gotten to drive the white Lamborghini for a short while, he reportedly added.
Iron J Towing took charge of the Lamborghinis until their owner could pick them up, the affidavit says.
Police also reportedly seized three cellphones and one tablet from the vehicles as evidence.
Hundreds Of Thousands
Lober told police the 2019 white Lamborghini is valued at about $320,000, while the 2015 green Lamborghini is valued at about $234,000, the document says. He also reportedly said that under the five-day rental agreement, the cars weren’t supposed to leave the state of Utah.
Scheel spoke with agents at the North Salt Lake Police Department, who were treating the case as a “possible breach of contract,” the document says.
The agents said they went to the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake City, where the two renters were possibly staying, but didn’t find them there.
Not Buying It
Scheel didn’t buy the two arrestees’ stories, he wrote in the affidavit.
“In my training and experience, it is common for GPS location services to be turned off on vehicles which are being stolen to prevent the owners from determining the vehicle’s location,” he wrote. “The statements made by the occupants of the vehicle are inconsistent and implausible, when compared to the statements made by the reporting party and the tow truck driver.”
Scheel wrote that vehicles of such high value are often taken, stripped for parts, or masked with the identity of a legitimately-gotten car.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
