He’s charged with stealing a trailer, 2 snowmobiles; Hermiston man a no-show for court

A Hermiston man skipped his recent court date on allegations he stole a cargo trailer and two snowmobiles from a Kennewick mini-storage lot last January.

Naythan A. Olney, 36, is charged in Benton County Superior Court with first-degree theft.

He had been sent a summons with a Dec. 14 court date, but failed to appear. A warrant was issued.

Kennewick police were called Jan. 19 after a 20-foot utility trailer was taken from a South Union Street storage facility. The enclosed trailer held two Polaris snowmobiles worth more than $30,000 total.

Security footage showed a Chevrolet Tahoe drive out of the lot with the trailer attached, court documents said. The Chevrolet, which had a pinstripe down the sides, did not have license plates.

People helped law enforcement identify the SUV owner, documents said.

Umatilla County sheriff’s deputies found the trailer in a field in Hermiston on Jan. 21 after someone recognized it from a Kennewick Police Department Facebook post and reported it to dispatch. The snowmobiles were recovered a short time later.

Deputies soon focused their investigation on Olney.

In an August interview with law enforcement, Olney admitted that he and a friend from prison drove to a Kennewick storage unit and stole the property, court documents said.

Olney said he hooked up a trailer to his truck and drove it to Oregon, where his friend sold one of the snowmobiles and kept the other, documents said. His friend told him to remove the license plates from the Chevrolet.

Olney allegedly acknowledged that he knew it was wrong.

He was arrested Nov. 27 on multiple felony charges out of Oregon.

The same day as Olney’s arrest in Hermiston, Umatilla County sheriff’s deputies got word of a stolen 2014 Isuzu NPR box truck.

The truck’s owner told authorities he had hired Olney, who is an unemployed diesel mechanic, to do work on the vehicle, according to a sheriff’s office news release.

The owner told Olney the truck had to remain at the mechanic’s home while it was being worked on, but it had since disappeared.

This story was originally published December 17, 2017 at 3:55 PM with the headline "He’s charged with stealing a trailer, 2 snowmobiles; Hermiston man a no-show for court."