Committee rejects bill to criminalize certain rental-equipment defaults after prosecutors, judges raise concerns

Senate Bill 509, which would make specified failures to return or pay for rented equipment a criminal offense, failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee after extended testimony and pointed questions from prosecutors, judges and senators.

Sponsor Senator Gary Stubblefield introduced the bill and brought an equipment-rental business owner, Andrew Antalone, who described repeated unpaid bills and claimed civil remedies have been ineffective in his experience. Antalone told the committee he had a current civil claim for roughly $30,000 and said credit-card chargebacks frequently favored customers. He told the panel: “...people steal from [rental companies], and there's nothing we can do about it,” describing frequent unpaid bills and damaged machines.

Prosecuting attorney Tom Tatum (Fifteenth Judicial District) told the committee that many cases raised by the sponsor are treated as civil matters and observed that criminal prosecutions require proof of criminal intent. “I do believe this is covered by theft of services,” Tatum said, but he cautioned that many disputes about equipment condition or payment wind up as civil liability rather than crimes because intent to permanently deprive may be hard to prove.

Committee members and a sitting judge asked whether the bill contained cure periods, timelines or safeguards for valid disputes. Judge Tom Tatum (different role earlier) and others said the draft lacked time frames and procedures to allow a renter to cure a shortfall or contest charges before criminal prosecution. Senator McKee and Senator Tucker pressed on whether the conduct was already covered by existing statutes; a prosecutor watching online texted a code section—5-36-115 (theft of leased or rented property)—that committee members discussed as potentially covering the conduct in question.

Sponsor Stubblefield said he grants renters multiple months to pay and only pursues criminal remedies when civil judgments do not result in payment; he argued existing civil remedies routinely fail to secure recovery. Several senators and the prosecutors countered that converting many contractual collection disputes into criminal offenses risked prosecutorial overreach and could criminalize ordinary disputes.

After debate and a motion to pass, the committee voted and the motion failed. The chair announced, “SB 5 0 9 did not pass.” The sponsor said he would consider amendments and further work.