Auto salesmen convicted of stealing $70,000 from impaired man

Two former Huling Brothers Auto Center employees were found guilty of first-degree theft today for stealing about $70,000 from the home of a mentally ill customer in 2006.

Jurors had deliberated for about four hours Tuesday and this morning before returning the verdicts against Ted Ernest Coxwell and Adrian Gregory Dillard, who were tried together in King County Superior Court. Coxwell was a former salesman and Dillard was a sales manager at Huling.

Coxwell was also found guilty of residential burglary; Dillard was found not guilty of the same charge. Dillard was also found guilty of money landering.

The two men were accused of stealing the cash from the apartment of a mentally ill man who had bought a truck from Huling Brothers days earlier.

According to charging documents, the victim walked into Huling Brothers on July 21, 2006, wearing feces-stained pants, and paid $30,000 cash for a black 2006 GMC Canyon pickup. The man told employees at the dealership that he had more money stashed in his home, according to the police report.

The next day, the man called the dealership and told the salesman who sold him the truck that he had crashed the truck on Mercer Island and that he needed help getting it back from impound. Members of the sales staff at Huling went to breakfast, where they discussed the man's situation and a possible plan to grab his savings from his home while the man was being taken to retrieve his car, charging papers say.

What ensued was an apparent competition to get the cash, fueled by deception among some employees who apparently tried to persuade others to steal from the man while really plotting to grab the money themselves, according to charging papers.

Coxwell and Dillard succeeded, and later used the money to pay off debts, take vacations and buy jewelry, according to testimony during the trial.

Police became involved when the truck was later found abandoned in West Seattle. When the officer tried to find the owner, the trail led to Huling Brothers and to the victim's filthy Delridge Way apartment. The man was sent to Harborview Medical Center and then to Western State Hospital for mental evaluation.

The Seattle Times isn't naming the victim because he is mentally ill and vulnerable.

A third former Huling employee, Paul Rimbey, was convicted in November of theft after a jury determined that he bilked the mentally ill man out of the pickup by duping him into transferring the vehicle's title over to him. Rimbey was sentenced earlier this month to nine months in jail.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com