Stolen plates give criminals a hot license

When people don't report stolen plates, thieves get away with other crimes.
CANTON (AP) -- When the state issues replacement license plates, at least some of them end up taking the place of stolen tags.
People report when their cars are stolen, but not necessarily their plates. So the stolen plates are used to throw police off a match on a stolen car, police said.
"People figure it [a plate] must have fallen off, then they won't report it," said suburban Perry Township Police Chief Tim Escola.
Stolen plates often are discarded after they're used in a crime. Others end up on vehicles stolen separately, Escola said.
Christina Marie Hattery and her son were returning from New York last month when a Norton police officer pulled them over near Akron. The officer said the plate on the back of Hattery's 1996 Jeep Cherokee didn't match the vehicle, Hattery said.
"I said, 'You must be mistaken,'" said Hattery, who lives in nearby Sugar Creek Township.
Then she looked at her front plate and back plate and discovered they didn't match. Someone had replaced her rear plate with one from a Saturn. Hattery said she doesn't know when or where it happened.
"It makes me wonder what they're doing with my plate," she said.
Replacements offered
The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which handles registrations for 12.1 million vehicles, offers replacement plates but didn't have an immediate breakdown Friday of which involved stolen, lost or damaged plates. People seeking replacement plates must certify what happened to the originals.
Temporary 30-day tags may be at special risk for thieves determined to take a stolen vehicle out-of-state and quickly get it registered elsewhere, according to BMV spokesman Fred Stratman.
In Cleveland, 2,519 plates were reported stolen last year, including 83 temporary tags and one handicapped plate. In Canton, police say that since 2002 they've received reports of more than 200 license plate thefts a year.
Among the victims were Christine and Donald Kuemerle of Canton. Front and rear plates were stolen from their 1989 Ford E-150 van in November.
"I think we just felt violated," said Kuemerle, and the motive "puzzled us."
People "steal them to use them in the commission of a crime," said Canton police Capt. Doug Shackle. "[Witnesses] get a plate number and guess what? It doesn't come back to the right vehicle, so we never catch the right owner. ... I've seen them used in everything like bank robberies, aggravated robberies down to simple thefts."
Escola said that when he was a state trooper, he encountered dozens of vehicles whose license plate didn't match the vehicle.
Stealing gas
Shackle said thieves will even put stolen plates on their vehicles to help them flee from a station without paying for gas.
Earlier this month, Stark County sheriff's deputies stopped a 28-year-old woman in Louisville who was suspected of involvement in a gasoline theft. A sheriff's report said her vehicle had a stolen license plate. She was charged with a felony count of receiving stolen property.