Gas-theft charge gets parks worker a year of house arrest | Miami Herald

A Miami-Dade parks supervisor pleaded guilty Wednesday to siphoning hundreds of gallons of fuel from a county truck into a private fuel tank in a scheme that investigators said cost taxpayers more than $6,000 worth of gasoline.

Siul Jesus Delgado, 28, was sentenced to one year of house arrest for grand theft and unlawful compensation in a plea deal that requires him to pay back both the $6,763 worth of fuel he admitted stealing and the roughly $14,000 that Miami-Dade spent investigating him, according to Inspector General Mary Cagle.

Delgado, who earned about $31,000 last year supervising a parks maintenance crew after getting hired in 2013, would arrive early for his shift in order to take his county truck to another person’s house, according to arrest reports. Investigators, tipped off to the alleged scheme last spring, said they watched him pump fuel from the truck’s storage tanks into the private one. Delgado also was seen taking bags of parks fertilizer to the house and filling up his own car from the truck, investigators said.

The owner of the property has not been charged as the investigation continues, Cagle said. Delgado’s lawyer, Larry McMillan, said his client “definitely regretted that he did it.” “He has a job,” McMillan said. “He’s going to pay it back.”