It appears as though the Marty McDivitt saga is finally over.
A little more than two years after McDivitt, the former owner of McDivitt Motors in Covington, was initially arrested on various crimes related to his business practices, he pleaded guilty to 50 more charges Friday in Tipton County Circuit Court.
Sentencing related to those 50 charges will run concurrent to the 15 years he was sentenced to last June. He must serve at least 30 percent, or four and half years, before being eligible for parole.
The 50 charges he pleaded guilty to Friday include one count of theft of property over $60,000, 12 counts of theft of property $10,000-$60,000, 14 counts of sales tax fraud, 11 counts of false sales tax returns, three counts of criminal simulation, forgery, impersonating a licensed professional and writing a worthless check. McDivitt has been remanded to the Tennessee Department of Corrections to serve his time.
Last month a Tipton County jury found him guilty on 21 counts of theft, including the Class A felony of theft over $250,000.
District Attorney General Mark Davidson thanked various law enforcement agencies, member of of DA’s office and Tipton County Clerk Mary Gaither for their work on the case.
“An automobile is one of the biggest purchases and sales many consumers make and those transactions should be transparent, lawful and as fair as possible,” Davidson said. “With this defendant being sentenced to prison he is being held to account for his greed in contriving his fraudulent schemes to defraud the hardworking taxpayers in our community.”
Twenty of the counts the June jury deliberated stemmed from McDivitt presenting car titles to the Bank of Tipton as collateral to make draws on his revolving line of credit. The problem was that McDivitt did not own the cars. In many cases the cars had already been sold to customers, which led to many complaints being filed against McDivitt when title issues arose. Some customers also said McDivitt did not pay off loans on trade-ins, leaving customers with two car payments.
