Lawsuit: Cocaine found in car after repairs

Jennings doesn’t smoke. A strange pair of men’s sunglasses and dental floss were also in the vehicle, he said.

Jennings complained to the manager at the Maaco shop, who promised to fix the problems.

But when Jennings got back to his Northwest Austin home, his wife noticed something else: a dent in the vehicle and damage to an outside mirror. “It looked like the car had been in a collision,” he said.

The next day brought an even bigger surprise. A detailer he had called to clean the car found a bag of cocaine stuffed in the back of the driver’s seat, Jennings said.

It was pretty upsetting, he said. “I had picked my 5-year-old daughter up from school, and she was literally in reach of the cocaine,” Jennings said. “This was so soon after Halloween and she had candy on her mind and that little white bag could have looked like sugar to her,” he said.

Jennings sued Maaco on April 27 after he said he couldn’t come to an agreement with its corporate offices. Local police are investigating the case.

Round Rock police have received two other complaints from customers of that Maaco shop, including that a Honda Civic was used for a party with beer and cigarettes in August 2014 and that a Toyota Highlander was driven 150 miles with the gas tank left empty and items missing in December 2014.

A former employee, Mike Anthony Rodriguez, was accused of stealing a customer’s Ford Mustang and another customer’s Mercedes Benz in November 2014, according to arrest affidavits. Rodriguez was arrested in the Mercedes Benz after a high-speed chase in Louisiana but posted bail in March and is at large, according to court records.

Tomberlin said he knew Rodriguez had a criminal record when he hired him but wanted to give him a chance.

“For several months, he seemed to be a model employee,” Joe Tomberlin, the owner of the franchise, said.

Tomberlin said Friday he had not yet received the Jennings lawsuit so he could not comment about it.