Woman Finds Car Was Crushed After Taking It In For Repairs

DENVER (CBS4) - A woman's car broke down on the side of the interstate, so she called a mechanic to have it towed to a garage. But instead of getting fixed the car was taken to a salvage yard and crushed.

Antwanette Tasco has tried almost everything to get answers about what happened to her car after she had it towed to a repair shop nearly two years ago.

"Couple of weeks go by, I go to pick it up, my car is gone. He said he thought I had it," Tasco said.

She immediately filed a stolen vehicle report with police and even started an investigation of her own

"I started calling crushers to see if it had been crushed," she said.

What she found is that her car had been sold to a local salvage yard. What she doesn't know is how it went from be repaired to being crushed.

CBS4 found her mechanic, Bernardo Soto, at a new shop.

"They talked about the car and he gave her an estimate for the alternator, which was $100, but that she was like, 'Okay, I'll come back in a week.' But she never came back," Soto said through a translator.

"He says that he doesn't know what happened to the car," the translator said.

Police later found the man who took the car to the salvage yard was the same man who originally towed it for Tasco. He brought it in with a bill of sale that had no seller's name on it. When asked who he bought it from he claimed he didn't know.

"We have the car going from where it should be to where it shouldn't be. Somewhere in the middle something happened, obviously, that the civil court says is wrong, and we say is wrong, but we can't prove it criminally," Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said.

Tasco was told her only recourse would be to try and get the mechanic to pay for the car. She won in small claims court after he didn't show up and he now owes her more than $7,500.

"I was very excited. I actually went and had drinks that night," Tasco said.

Unfortunately almost a year later she hasn't seen a single penny of the money. She can continue to file paperwork and try to put a hold on his pay check or a lien on his property, but that will cost money.

Right now Tasco is unsure she'll ever get what she's owed but she isn't going to stop trying.

The downside to gong to small claims court is that even if when somebody wins the judge makes it very clear that when it comes to getting the money they are on your own.