Woman who rented truck in 2018 and never returned it to Woodstock business pleads guilty to theft

A woman who rented a vehicle from a Woodstock business in 2018 and never returned it pleaded guilty Thursday to theft but avoided prison time, being sentenced to 24 months of conditional discharge.

Shelly K. Lee, 49, of Woodstock, who had listed an address in West Palm Beach, Florida, when she was arrested in Indiana in June, pleaded guilty to theft of leased labor property, a Class 4 felony, according to a judgment order in the McHenry County court.

She also must pay restitution of $2,500 to Ralph’s Rent-All, from which she is accused of leasing a Ford E-350 truck and not returning it on Nov. 3, 2018, the agreed upon date, court records say.

In October, she must start paying $250 each month until paying off the entire restitution, the judgement order said.

She was sentenced to serve 42 days in the McHenry County jail at 50% but received credit for time served, and the time is considered met. She also is subject to drug testing, the order said.

She “willfully failed to return the vehicle to the place and at the time specified in the lease, and after being mailed a written demand for the return of the vehicle on Nov. 5, 2018,” she still did not return the truck, according to the documents.

Mike Wenzel, who owned the family business at the time the truck was rented to Lee, said he remembers the day Lee rented the vehicle. When it was not returned, he said he got “a gut feeling.”

In the first couple of years after that, he was getting tollway violation notices from different states, including Colorado and Utah. Each time, he had to send a police report to show the truck was stolen and it “created a hassle,” Wenzel said.

At one point, he was sent a picture of the truck parked on a Native American reservation in New Mexico and it was badly damaged, he said. When Lee was located in Indiana, Wenzel said he got a call from authorities asking if he wanted her arrested, and he said yes. Though he had already received $10,000 in insurance money for the truck he had paid $30,000 for, he said he wanted Lee to have “some type of consequences.”

He is good with how the case was adjudicated, but questions if he’ll ever actually see the restitution money. The theft, he said, is “part of the business. ... You do everything you can in case it does happen.”

Since this theft, he said, he stopped renting trucks as part of his business saying, “It’s not worth the headache.”

Lee’s attorney declined to comment.