BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A professor at the Florida Institute of Technology was arrested on Tuesday after a basketball player at the college had his car damaged earlier this year, according to the Melbourne Police Department.
In an arrest report, police said that they responded to the school’s gymnasium back in January after the player reported his doors had been “scratched in all directions as if someone was drawing on his vehicle.”
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The driver-side mirror had also been broken and was hanging by its wires on the side of the car, police said.
The player told police that his ex-girlfriend might have been involved, as they had broken off their relationship shortly before then, the report shows.
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However, she later told him that she wasn’t responsible, explaining that she was in Virginia for work training, according to investigators. Instead, the player said he believed it was her “assumed boyfriend,” 56-year-old Douglas Willard — a professor at the school who frequented the gym, detectives explained.
Investigators said that video surveillance leading up to the incident showed Willard entering a nearby workshop at the student design center, grabbing a crowbar and a “small unidentifiable object” that he put in his pocket.
After leaving the building with the crowbar, footage showed a white SUV — similar to Willard’s — drive from the center to the gym’s parking lot and park next to the player’s car, police said.
A person is then spotted getting out of the SUV and walking to the player’s car where the damage was located before returning to the SUV and driving away, the report states.
Footage taken hours afterward shows the SUV parking back at the center before Willard and the ex-girlfriend are seen walking in together, according to detectives.
In May, detectives said that they spoke with the ex-girlfriend about the footage, and she denied being in a relationship with Willard or telling him about her “prior tumultuous relationship.” She didn’t have any explanation for why Willard would damage the player’s car, either, police said.
Following an investigation, Willard was eventually taken into custody on Tuesday.
He faces a charge of criminal mischief, and he was released on Wednesday afternoon after posting bond of $2,000.
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