A 29-year-old Laramie man was arrested in Weld County recently for allegedly stealing a trunkload of catalytic converters.

That's according to a post on the Weld County Sheriff's Office Facebook page, which names the suspect as Austin Brumfield of Laramie.

According to the post, the arrest stems from a report at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 29 of a pair of stolen catalytic converters that were reported missing from an RV dealer near Longmont, Colo.

Security camera footage of the theft showed a gray Nissan sedan with distinctive body damage to the rear passenger door as a possible suspect vehicle in the theft. Deputies remembered seeing a vehicle closely resembling the Nissan parked at a motel near the dealership.

They circled back and saw the Nissan was still parked at the motel. In speaking with a woman in the back seat, they learned that the car belonged to a man named Austin. She told them he was staying in a room at the motel, and deputies saw license plates, bolt cutters, and Sawzall blades sitting in plain sight in the car.

The woman told deputies she had only met Austin a couple of days earlier and didn't know his name or phone number. She returned to the motel, entering an unknown room. But they soon saw her leave the motel, walking down the street with an unknown man. When deputies stopped the couple, the man, later identified as Austin Brumfield, gave them a fake name, Jack Nickelsen, and a fake birth date.

But as he was questioned, he admitted to his real name, saying he lied to them because he had active warrants out of Wyoming. It turned out, however, that Brumfield did not have any Wyoming warrants. The value of the two stolen converters turned out to be around $5,600 dollars when the cost of labor to repair the RVs was factored in. Investigators got a warrant for the Nissan, and the search turned up more stolen catalytic converters that investigators say had been stolen from around northern Colorado.

Brumfield was arrested on charges of false reporting to authorities, theft, and two counts of first-degree criminal trespass, all felonies. But according to the post, other charges are pending. Anyone with information on the case is being asked to call the Weld County Sheriff's Office at 970 356-4015.

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