Lucerne Valley men arrested for stealing tractor, stowing at former illegal pot-farm site
A pair of Lucerne Valley men were arrested for allegedly stealing a tractor from a local business and stowing it at the same rural High Desert site where San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office last year conducted a sweep of illegal-pot farms.
Lucerne Valley residents Scotty Hayden and Kevin Phillips, respectively, aged 32 and 24, were arrested Saturday afternoon at the 33500 block of Haynes Road on a property where deputies say they located a tractor that had been reported stolen overnight by a business owner just a few miles northeast, according to a Sheriff's news release.
This block is also one of four locations in Lucerne Valley where Sheriff's investigators served search warrants resulting in the seizure of 6,429 marijuana plants, five pounds of processed pot, and three guns on May 2, 2021, according to a Sheriff's release at the time.
It's unclear how much of these illegal-product seizures came from the 33500 Haynes Road block in specific, but deputies issued one illegal-cultivation ticket at that property against Jose Armando Sandoval Larios, whom the Sheriff's Department identified at the time as a 23-year-old Lucerne Valley resident.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Staci Parks confirmed in an email to the Daily Press that the department is aware of the stolen tractor this weekend being located on the same block of Haynes Road as the illegal-pot-farm raid in 2021. "It was at a non-operational MJ grow," she wrote in an email.
Deputies from the Sheriff's Victor Valley station got a call about the stolen tractor from an unnamed business owner on the 31800 block of Brucite Street in Lucerne Valley shortly before 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
The owner "reported his 2015 New Holland Skid Steer tractor had been stolen overnight from his business," the release states, noting that this tractor is worth about $30,000. "The suspects drove through his gate to exit the property."
Later on Saturday, around 2 p.m., the business owner called deputies again to say "he saw a male adult driving his tractor in the desert area near Meridian Road in Lucerne Valley."
After tapping help from the Sheriff's Aviation Unit, the release states, "deputies located the stolen tractor on a property in the 33500 block of Haynes Road."
Deputy Jake Ballinger authored a search warrant for the property, where the Sheriff's team located, and arrested Hayden and Phillips. They were booked at the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto on suspicions of possession of the stolen property, according to the Sheriff's release.
Hayden and Phillips appear to have no longer been in custody as of Monday afternoon, according to county booking records reviewed by the Daily Press.
The records list Hayden as having been released to "self" on bail around 2:15 p.m. Sunday with "no appearance scheduled" in court. No active booking information was available under the name and age provided for Phillips in the Sheriff's release.
"Both suspects have bailed out and will appear in court in the future," Sheriff's spokeswoman Gloria Huerta said in an email, adding that she didn't believe there's a connection between the stolen tractor and the pot-farm bust in 2021 but would verify the issue with investigators.
Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and worldwide. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Lucerne Valley men allegedly steal tractor, stow at old illegal-pot farm
