- April 24, 2024
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A stolen Kawasaki all-terrain vehicle bounced all over the Mondex in the hands of two of the area's most oft-arrested young men, who — before they were charged — told others they were trying to sell it to pay someone else's bail money, according to Sheriff's Office reports.
The $4,000 ATV belonged to 49-year-old James Kuykendall, a Palm Coast resident. Kuykendall told a Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputy April 30 that it went missing from his daughter's unlocked shed on Tangelo Avenue in the Mondex community, also called Daytona North.
She wasn't sure when it disappeared, he said, but thought it might have been on a day when she heard the dogs barking outside, sometime around April 20. The key was with the ATV.
By the time Kuykendall reported the theft, he'd already heard reports that locals had seen 27-year-old Jerry Falls — who'd been arrested 18 times since 2007 on charges including battery, burglary and assault — riding the 2008 camouflage ATV around the Mondex.
About a week after the theft, Falls and another oft-jailed local — William Westervelt, also 27, and with nine arrests since 2009 for charges including including shoplifting and armed burglary — tried to sell the ATV to a Mondex woman for $400, saying they needed to money to bail another local out of jail.
She gave them $200, with the promise of another $200 if they returned with a bill of sale. But before they did, she heard that the ATV was stolen. She called the pair and said she knew the ATV was stolen, and told them to come back and refund her money.
Instead, Westervelt snuck onto her property April 29 or April 30 and stole the ATV again, she later told a deputy. Her son saw him riding it and tried to get it back, but Westervelt sped off.
But while on the woman's property, he'd dropped something: a Samsung Galaxy tablet, which the woman found. She saw Facebook messages between Westervelt and Falls about stealing the ATV from Kuykendall's daughter's house and trying to sell it.
May 1, Westervelt tried to sell the ATV to another local woman, a Cottonwood Street resident, for $300, she told deputies. She realized it was stolen and called the Sheriff's Office, seeking a trespass order against Westervelt.
She told a deputy she'd gone to high school with him, but didn't want him around because of his drug use. The last time he'd come to the home, she said, he threw two bags under her carport and said he'd return later to pick them up. She told the deputy she didn't want him around her property on a stolen ATV and was afraid he'd steal her belongings.
Someone later found the ATV near the woods outside of the home of the family of the person Westervelt and Falls had said they were trying to raise bail money for.
By the time deputies wanted to ask Falls questions about the ATV theft, he was already in jail: A deputy who knew that Falls had a suspended license caught him behind the wheel of a Ford Explorer, using a rope to tow another man down the road on a dirt bike.
Falls denied having anything to do with the theft. He said Westervelt had tried to sell him an ATV and that the two had discussed in through Facebook.
Westervelt, speaking with deputies, also denied stealing the ATV and said that he had Kuykendall's daughter's permission to ride it. He said the Samsung tablet with the messages was Falls.'
Deputies arrested Westervelt and charged him with grand theft auto, dealing in stolen property, and burglary of a vehicle. They charged Falls with the same three charges.
Both men remained in jail as of the night of May 6: Falls' bond was revoked, and no one had paid Westervelt's, set at $17,500.
