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A shocked couple is still reeling after leaving Joe's Crab Shack to discover the valet had given their car away to somebody else.
Josh Gelle and Jodi Abadie handed their ticket and $5 to the valet after eating dinner at the Newport Beach restaurant on the 2600 block of Pacific Coast Highway, only to come back with news that ruined their Saturday night. "A couple minutes later the valet came up to us [and said], 'We don't know how tell you this, but we gave your car away," Gelle told CBS 2. "Our first reaction was, 'Where's the hidden camera?' We're looking around. You're kidding."
"I'm still in shock," said Abadie.
Abadie then took her cellphone out to record video of their conversation with the valet, who claims "The other guy that's not here anymore" gave their car away. The thief claimed that Gelle's 2014 Mazda CX-9 was his but didn't have his ticket. The valet on duty also assured the couple that giving the keys to somebody without a ticket was not normal protocol. But Abadie remained suspicious of the crew, who are not managed by Joe's Crab Shack. "It seemed odd that they sent home the one guy that was responsible for giving the keys away and that they didn't hold him there, until the police [came]," she said.
LAZ Parking, who handles the valet at the restaurant, gave Gelle a rental car until the whole mess is sorted out. When reached for a comment by CBS, they said in a statement: "The safety and the service of us customers is of the utmost priority. We take this incident seriously and once we have all the facts, we will act accordingly."
The only description reported of the man who drove off with Gelle's car was that he had an Ohio State tattoo, narrowing the list of suspects down to these guys.
In the meantime, Gelle seems pretty beat up over the whole ordeal. "I just want to be made whole, I didn't do anything wrong here, they gave the car away," he said. Can somebody get this poor guy his car back?
