A Capital Region towing contractor is headed to state prison after prosecutors say he turned routine parking lot tows into a multi-year vehicle theft operation that stripped dozens of owners of their cars.
The Sentences
John Rivers, 44, of East Greenbush, was sentenced to two to six years in state prison after pleading guilty to grand larceny in the second degree. Authorities say Rivers used his legitimate towing authority to remove vehicles from commercial parking lots across the region, then sold them without properly notifying the owners as required by law. A second man, 58-year-old Robert Pitcher of Broadalbin, received five years of probation after admitting to possessing stolen property tied to the scheme. Prosecutors say Pitcher purchased the vehicles Rivers towed and helped resell them using falsified paperwork.
How a Towing Contract Became a Theft Pipeline
According to the Office of the New York State Attorney General, the scheme ran between October 2022 and August 2024 and ultimately involved more than 30 felony counts. Investigators say Rivers relied on towing contracts with local businesses, including a Walmart in Latham, a Hannaford in Albany, and a Home Depot in Rensselaer, to remove vehicles parked overnight.
New York law requires towing companies to notify registered owners within five days and hold a vehicle for at least 30 days before claiming ownership. Prosecutors say Rivers routinely ignored those requirements, either skipping notification entirely or imposing storage fees as high as $1,000 per day, effectively pricing owners out of ever retrieving their own cars. Vehicles were often sold within days of being towed, long before the legally required holding period had even elapsed.
An Undercover Sting Exposed the Pattern
In March 2024, investigators ran an undercover operation to confirm the suspected activity. New York State Police placed a Hyundai Sonata in a Walmart parking lot in Latham, and the vehicle was towed that same night and taken directly to Rivers’ shop. The registered owner, according to prosecutors, was never contacted. Two months later, investigators tracked that same Sonata to a chop shop in Massachusetts, where it was already being dismantled, and the owner still had not been told the car had been towed or resold.
The Scale of the Operation
By December 2024, Rivers was formally charged in connection with 17 stolen vehicles valued at approximately $230,000. Pitcher was later charged for his role purchasing and reselling those vehicles, allegedly creating fraudulent ownership documents and, in some cases, working with Rivers to falsify titles outright. Investigators describe a coordinated system built on forged paperwork and rapid resale, designed to move vehicles before owners even realized something was wrong.
Why the Case Matters
The Attorney General’s Office frames the case as a significant breach of trust within an industry that operates under regulatory authority. Towing companies are granted legal power to remove improperly parked vehicles, and prosecutors say Rivers converted that legitimate authority into a theft pipeline. Rivers pleaded guilty in December 2025, and Pitcher pleaded guilty to criminal possession of stolen property in the third degree, formally closing out an investigation that spanned nearly two years and required close coordination between the Attorney General’s Office and New York State Police.
For the vehicle owners caught up in the scheme, the damage went beyond a financial loss on paper. Many were left without transportation for extended periods while completely unaware their vehicles had already been sold off or dismantled at a chop shop. Officials say enforcement efforts targeting similar towing and resale schemes across the state remain ongoing, even with this particular investigation now closed.