A Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration temporary employee arrested Wednesday in connection with stealing cars from the city impound lot was hired by the agency despite a previous conviction involving a stolen vehicle.
Isaac Rupert, 35, was arrested Wednesday at his home in the 4900 block of Alston Road in Baltimore and charged with three counts of felony theft and three counts of creating fake duplicate MVA motor vehicle titles. He was being held at the city’s Central Booking facility in lieu of $75,000 bail.
Members of the city Regional Auto Task Force arrested Rupert after investigating the theft of 2003 Volkswagen Passat that vanished from the city’s Pulaski Highway impound lot in October. Police charged Juwann Smith of Annapolis in November with using forged documents to pick up the car before the vehicle’s rightful owner could retrieve it.
The new charges allege Rupert used his job at the MVA to create fake titles, which Smith then used to pick up the Passat from the impound lot.
MVA officials said Tuesday that Rupert was a temporary employee hired through an employment agency to work as a title clerk in the agency’s Mondawmin office. MVA officials said Rupert’s employment ended on Nov. 28.
State court records show a Baltimore County jury convicted Rupert of unauthorized use of a stolen vehicle in 1994. In 2000 Rupert faced similar charges in the city that were later dropped.
Beuil Young, spokesman for the MVA, said the temporary agency that hired Rupert was responsible for checking his record.
“He was a temporary employee, so a background check may have been done by the agency who hired him,” Young said.
Young said he does not know the agency’s name.
Charging documents filed last week paint a picture of a sophisticated operation that used a bogus notary public stamp and internal MVA documents to remove vehicles from the impound lot.
Charging documents allege Rupert gave fake titles to Smith, as well as a yet-to-be arrested accomplice who picked up a 2004 Dodge Ram on the same day police charged Smith with retrieving the Passat. Both suspects presented lot employees with phony duplicate titles, along with a forged notarized letter from the vehicles’ owners authorizing them to take the cars.
Smith was arrested Nov. 18 at the lot while attempting to retrieve a 2006 Toyota Matrix using a phony title police believe Rupert provided. Police arrested Smith before he could complete the transaction. The Examiner had revealed in an Nov. 17 article that the Passat was missing after the owner, Antonio Brown, came forward.
