A 33-year-old man who had a legitimate 30-day permit for his Volkswagen Jetta was arrested Tuesday morning after an Odessa police officer observed a fake temporary tag on the car.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, an officer pulled over a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta around 10 a.m. Tuesday in the 2300 block of Field Street after noticing the buyer’s tag on the car didn’t have a valid state seal on it and the letter in the tag wasn’t in its correct position.
When the officer ran the tag, he was told the tag came back to a 2007 Toyota Prius 4H, the report stated.
The driver of the car, Francisco Javier Vega-Moctezuma, gave the officer fake documents indicating he’d bought the car on Sept. 3, according to the report.
The officer indicated in his report that people sometimes use fictitious tags to “mask the identity of vehicles for robberies, thefts, burglaries, stolen vehicles, salvage titles, avoid tolls, vehicles that can’t pass inspection and vehicles that are uninsured.”
While Vega-Moctezuma’s car was being inventoried, the officer found a legitimate Texas 30-day permit receipt dated Aug. 5 indicating he was issued a permit prior to displaying the fake temporary tag, the report stated.
Vega-Moctezuma was arrested on suspicion of forgery of a governmental document, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison. He remains in the Ector County jail on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold and a $5,000 surety bond.
