Woman arrested for theft of county work truck
A woman from Albuquerque is facing charges in Los Alamos for allegedly stealing a county vehicle from a courthouse parking lot and driving it to the library in White Rock.
Prosecutors charged 32-year-old Alexis M. Nevels with the motor vehicle theft after reviewing video surveillance footage that appeared to show her taking the truck from a parking lot in front of the Los Alamos Magistrate Court building on Trinity Drive on the morning of Aug. 20.
Two Los Alamos County park maintenance workers reported the county-owned Ford F-250 pickup missing around 10:30 a.m. The workers told Los Alamos Police Department investigators that they’d parked the truck near the courthouse around 9:30 a.m. to perform work on the areas around Ashley Pond. They returned to the parking lot less than an hour later and the truck was gone, according to an affidavit filed in Los Alamos Magistrate Court.
The workers said they’d left the truck unlocked with the keys in the ignition while they performed work. One of the county employees told police he wasn’t sure if the truck had been stolen, or if a coworker was “messing with him,” the affidavit stated.
Surveillance footage from courthouse cameras showed the truck leaving the parking lot at 10:18 a.m., driven by a woman with a “skinny” build and a ponytail, according to the affidavit. Other camera angles showed a woman walk from Ashley Pond, use a mobile toilet, and then take the truck. She was described as carrying a black bag and wearing a green dress with black leggings underneath, white long socks, and flip flops.
LAPD and other area law enforcement began searching for the stolen county vehicle and LAPD officers responded to the White Rock Branch Library after a National Park Service law enforcement officer located the truck in the parking lot. Police also received information that someone matching the woman’s description was using a bathroom inside the library.
Officers and a police K-9 entered the library and ordered Nevels to exit the bathroom. Police then arrested her inside the library; however, she refused to identify herself and told officers that “she did not have a name,” the affidavit stated.
Inside the bathroom, officers located Nevels’ belongings “strewn around on the floor,” the affidavit stated, along with a plastic bag from Smith’s containing Los Alamos pamphlets, a local newspaper, some cash in a small bag, some “loose cash,” and drug paraphernalia, described in the affidavit as a “drug pipe.”
Nevels is charged with felony vehicle theft and a misdemeanor charge of concealing identity. A first appearance hearing is scheduled for 1:30 on Aug. 22 in Los Alamos Magistrate Court.