Accused Burglar Hails Littleton Lyft: Sheriff

LITTLETON, CO -- A man was caught early Tuesday morning emerging from shrubbery and attempting to hail a rideshare in Littleton with a backpack filled with items missing from neighborhood parked cars.

Adam J. Vultaggio, 27, was arrested near West Rice Avenue in Jefferson County after deputies responded to a report of a man breaking into a car.

"Sometimes criminals aren’t the brightest people in the world," the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office posted on the agency's Facebook page. "Sometimes our deputies are quite clever."

About 1:30 a.m. a resident confronted an alleged car thief wearing a backpack and yellow hoodie, but the man ran away, the sheriff's office said. Sheriff's deputies searched the area for about half an hour and then noticed a Lyft vehicle pull up nearby. A deputy spoke to the driver, who said a passenger named "Adam" had hailed the ride through the app.

Soon, the deputy saw a man "emerge from the overgrown nearby bushes" and enter the vehicle. "The man was sweaty, carrying a backpack and had a yellow hoodie," the sheriff's office said.

"Despite denying he had broken into any vehicles, numerous items that had been stolen out of vehicles were found on his person as well as a knife and drug paraphernalia," the sheriff's statement said.

Vultaggio was charged with burglary and booked in the Jefferson County jail.

Image: Adam J. Vultaggio via Jefferson County Sheriff's Office