LOGAN — A 37-year-old Taylorsville man with a lengthy criminal history has been transferred to the Cache County Jail to face theft charges. Matthew Derek Petersen was booked Friday night after being extradited from Idaho, where he was serving a sentence for felony drug possession.
According to an arrest warrant, Petersen is suspected of stealing a construction trailer in Providence, during the nighttime hours of Aug. 25-26, 2022. It contained more than $10,000 worth of mostly new tools belonging to a local contractor.
Cache County Sheriff’s deputies obtained surveillance footage from an adjacent business which captured video of a truck as it pulled the trailer from the parking lot. It appeared to be a maroon Dodge Ram with an extended cab, along with a number of additional distinguishing features.
Several days later, an off-duty deputy located the stolen trailer abandoned in a campsite. It had been stripped and emptied of its contents, the affidavit explained.
On Sept. 1, 2022, deputies from the Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office located the suspect truck in Paris, Idaho. It was registered to Petersen. The tire tread matched tracks from the campsite where the abandoned trailer was found.
Investigators located several of the alleged stolen items inside the truck. Most of the tools were gone, leading law enforcement to suspect they had been disposed of, sold or stored at another location. A cell-phone photo showed Petersen posing with a majority of the tools from the trailer.
According to court records, Petersen has been held in Idaho the past year on unrelated drug charges. He also has multiple convictions during the past 15 years for burglary and theft in Salt Lake, West Jordan, and Farmington.
The Cache County Attorney’s Office has filed a criminal case against Petersen in Logan’s 1st District Court. It includes two counts of theft, a second-degree felony; and criminal mischief, a class A misdemeanor.
Individuals arrested and charged in complaints are presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court.