Richmond County deputies charge 2 with stealing disabled car

ROCKINGHAM — Two men are accused of stealing a car that was left on the side of the road and trying to sell it for scrap metal.

According to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a call at Cross Creek Metals on Battley Dairy Road, south of Hamlet after 48-year-old Jason Franklin Jacobs and 28-year-old Jacob Tray McKenzie tried to sell a vehicle.

Through an investigation, deputies reportedly learned that the Honda Accord had been left disabled on Battley Dairy Road, and Jacobs and McKenzie allegedly took it without the owner’s permission to the scrapyard.

The two were arrested and each charged with larceny of a motor vehicle. Each man is being held in the Richmond County Jail on a $7,500 secured bond.

N.C. court records show Jacobs has several pending traffic citations from 2023.

Records with the N.C. Department of Adult Correction show Jacobs is serving a nearly five-year probation term from a 2023 South Carolina conviction of possession with intent to sell a Schedule II controlled substance.

His most recent North Carolina conviction was in 2022 on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon on a government official in Union County.

Records show Jacobs had several convictions in Richmond County from 1993-2003:

• 1993 - driving while impaired
• 1995 - driving while impaired, operating a vehicle without a license
• 1997 - driving while impaired, driving while license revoked
• 1999 - driving while impaired
• 2001 - assault with a deadly weapon, child abuse
• 2003 - resisting a public officer, driving while license revoked

McKenzie was convicted in November on charges of obtaining property by false pretenses and common law forgery and was given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Records show McKenzie also has multiple prior convictions:

• 2014 - breaking and entering a house of worship, assault with a deadly weapon (probation revoked, incarcerated for eight months)
• 2016 - felonious restraint, crime against nature
• 2019 - misdemeanor larceny (four counts); resisting a public officer, violation for having a controlled substance in a penal institution (probation revoked, served seven months, followed by eight-month post-release revocation)
• 2023 - misdemeanor larceny, carrying a concealed weapon

All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.