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Last updated on Friday, October 26, 2012
(BLOOMINGTON) - 27-year-old Kevin Tate, of Bloomington, was arrested after police say he set his friend’s Audi on fire on August 10th.
He has been charged with arson and fraud.
According to a probable cause affidavit, police found a Scottish Inn receipt from a Bloomington and tracked cell phone records.
The owner of the car told police he spent the night at a friend's house and learned from his mother that his car was found on fire on Bottom Road. The car's owner told police he'd parked his car in the 3000 block of South Leonard Springs Road the night before, and he later got a ride to a friend's house.
He told police he and Tate have been friends since middle school and he had invited Tate out for drinks that night, but Tate declined.
The car's owner couldn't explain why a receipt in his friend's name was in his trunk.
Police interviewed Tate a few days after the fire. Tate told police his friend called and gave him a "heads up" that investigators would be calling and that they found a room receipt in his name in the trunk.
Tate confirmed his friend's account that he declined to go out for drinks. He told police that since he works nights, he keeps to his sleeping schedule, stayed in that night and slept until 1 p.m. on Aug. 10.
But police say according to cell phone records Tate's cell phone was in use between about 8 and 10 the morning of Aug. 10. Some of those calls and text messages from Tate's phone are to the owner of the car and places Tate near the burnt car.
The owner of the car contacted his insurance company on Aug. 14 to file a claim that his car had been stolen and burned.
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