Hotel Valet Conned Into Giving Ferrari Keys To Joyriders

At a busy golf resort in Florida, a hapless hotel valet was conned into handing the keys to a £200,000 Ferrari 458 Spider to a fraudster who played the system

Here at CT we don’t even like handing our keys over to the guys who run airport car parks. We’ll take the option where we can keep our seats unsullied by the buttocks of strangers, thanks.

When you entrust your keys to someone else, anything could happen. The valet could go speeding, race it around or even, umm, give it to someone else. That’s exactly what happened to the rich owner of a Ferrari 458 Spider, as has emerged in details filed to the Florida courts.

James “Skip” Fowler, 73 and loaded, parked his open-top 458 at the Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort & Golf Club, handing the keys to a valet. Later, a totally unconnected man and woman came back to collect the car from a different valet, insisting that the valet let them into the car so they could fetch ‘their’ ticket. The overworked valet complied.

Fraudsters Levi Miles and Chloe Rimmer ‘got impatient’ with staff and used the busy period around midnight to make sure the valets were distracted, at which point they simply drove off with the car for a half-hour joyride before being pulled over by police. Fowler, a lawyer, is now suing the hotel chain that owns the venue; Marriott International, and the parking company, 717 Parking.

He says he has had to pay large sums for inspections, repairs and legal fees, also claiming that its value has been affected. About two grams of cocaine were found on the centre console when Miles and Rimmer were pulled over.

Meanwhile, Miles says he didn’t steal the car. He argues that since the valet gave him the keys, it wasn’t stealing. Tell it to the judge, you dishonest little punk. Miles stands accused of grant theft, possession of drugs and the small matter of him not actually having a valid driver’s licence.