MAN WHO STOLE DOZENS OF GOLF CARTS GETS TWO YEARS IN PRISON

A man who admitted to stealing or trying to steal 84 golf carts across several states to solve his financial troubles was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison, authorities in North Dakota said.

According to a sentencing memorandum filed by his lawyer this month, the man, Nathan Rodney Nelson, 46, came up with the idea to steal and sell golf carts while he was struggling to maintain his home inspection business.

From there, authorities said, Nelson acted mostly at night, going to golf courses and stealing carts in pairs.

According to an agreement under which he pleaded guilty in December in federal court in

North Dakota to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property, he would use “common ignition keys to drive the golf carts from the courses onto a trailer.”

The agreement did not explain how Nelson obtained the keys.

Nelson ran the theft operation for about four years, from 2017 to 2021, selling golf carts he had taken from golf courses in states including Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to the plea agreement and a June 2021 affidavit filed by an FBI agent, who wrote that Nelson had stolen at least 70 carts.

Nelson often sold the golf carts under an alias, Mason Weber, on Craigslist or on Facebook Marketplace, according to court records. He sometimes crossed state lines to make a sale.

Nelson usually sold the carts for $2,500, although they were often worth at least $5,000, according to the plea agreement. The thefts cost his victims a total of around $222,000.

The FBI had been investigating him since July 2019 after a North Dakota sheriff’s office asked for assistance when it realized the string of thefts might be connected, according to the affidavit.

Nelson’s scheme unraveled in August 2020 when his phone number gave him away, according to the affidavit.

He had kept eight stolen golf carts at a self-storage facility in Illinois under his alias, according to the affidavit. A sheriff’s office there discovered that the phone number associated with the alias was the same number that belonged to Nelson.

The authorities tied him to several interstate golf cart sales before he was arrested at a gym in Florida in March 2021, according to the affidavit.

His two-year sentence includes credit for time he has spent in prison. A federal judge ordered him on Tuesday to “forfeit” around $222,000.

It was unclear why Nelson trafficked in golf carts, but his lawyer, Lorelle A. Moeckel, wrote in the sentencing memorandum that her client “was lured by the idea of quick easy cash and made a very poor choice, which he deeply regrets.”