Bigfork man sentenced for stealing roller from Lake County
The Daily Inter Lake
Tye Fortuna, 31, of Bigfork was sentenced last week for stealing construction equipment from Lake County
Lake County District Judge Kim Christopher sentenced Fortuna to 10 years on each of two counts of felony theft and suspended all but 180 days.
Where he spends those 180 days will be decided by the state Department of Corrections and could include prison.
Christopher also sentenced him to six months on each of three counts of obscuring the identity of a machine; those sentences were suspended.
Christopher noted that the less time Fortuna spends in jail, the sooner he can begin earning money to pay $76,900 in restitution she ordered.
She told Fortuna that he is either, as he said, suffering from "a colossal error in judgment" with intentions of straightening out, or "a serious con man. I don't know which is true."
Fortuna was convicted of taking a road construction roller that belonged to Lake County and painting his construction company's name on the machine.
He also was convicted of possessing a 2000 Dodge pickup that was reported stolen in Nevada. Fortuna registered the vehicle in Lake County with another vehicle's identification number, according to the charge against him.
Separately, Fortuna was convicted in February of insurance fraud in Carson City, Nev.
According to the Nevada Appeal newspaper, he was sentenced to 12 to 32 months, suspended, for falsely reporting the theft of a front-end loader.
The newspaper says Fortuna owned Sierra Earth and Stone Corp. of Carson City. He reported to Zurich Insurance Co. that a loader was stolen from a job site. The insurance company paid him about $90,000.
After an anonymous tip to Nevada officials, an investigation began. It reportedly revealed that Fortuna had personally loaded the equipment on a trailer and moved it to a friend's property in Bigfork, changing all of the machine's identification numbers.
A district judge in Carson City placed Fortuna on probation for five years and ordered him to pay $43,000 in restitution and $5,000 to the Nevada fraud unit.