Two men in Kingsburg were busted for stealing hundreds of dollars worth of grapes.
The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that the two suspects were booked into jail on charges of grand theft, possession of stolen property, conspiracy and providing false names to deputies.
The big picture: On Tuesday morning, a Tulare County Sheriff’s deputy made contact with two people in an SUV during a traffic stop.
- The SUV had several hundreds of pounds of unpackaged grapes in the rear of the vehicle.
- Detectives learned that the grapes were stolen from a field near Ave. 400 and Rd. 84.
- The grapes had been cut and stored at a location in the field on Monday night.
- Juan Benjamin Ventura, 47, and Dionicio Sandoval, 57, drove back to the field to retrieve the grapes. They both live in Reedley.
Go deeper: Detectives identified the grapes as Tinco variety red grapes and weighed them at the scene, finding that the two men stole around 480 pounds.
- The total value of the grapes came in at $700, which is a felony in California.
- The grapes had to be destroyed because they were harvested prematurely and not packaged properly.
