LAPD officer from Whittier pleads guilty to stealing pickup truck in Orange

A Los Angeles Police Department officer pleaded guilty Thursday and was immediately sentenced to six months in jail for stealing a pickup truck from a small auto dealer in Orange.

Matthew Calleros, 46, of Whittier, went to B & J Car Co. on Oct. 25, 2019, and asked a car salesman to retrieve some information about a 2015 Chevrolet Silverado on the lot, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

While the salesman was doing that Calleros drove away with the vehicle, prosecutors said.

Calleros also used another officer’s identification to report the stolen pickup truck was recovered, prosecutors said.

Calleros checked a state law enforcement system to run the vehicle’s license plate as well as a license plate belonging to a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado that he placed on the 2015 pickup truck, prosecutors said.

Thanks to an anonymous tip, detectives in Orange were led to Calleros as a suspect, said Sgt. Phil McMullin of the Orange Police Department. The dealer had written it off, McMullin said.

Calleros, who would drive the stolen vehicle to work, was arrested on Nov. 9, 2020, at the Hollenbeck Division of the LAPD, prosecutors said. The Chevrolet Silverado was parked there at the time.

Calleros pleaded guilty to car theft, forgery of registration or license plates, and false personation, all felonies, as well as three misdemeanor counts each of unauthorized disclosure of information from DMV records.