Josh Johnson, Budget Truck Rental

In February 2020 he worked at Budget Truck Rental on Garden of the Gods Road. He had worked there for 15 or 16 years and has rented out thousands of cars.

• Budget rents moving trucks; they start at cargo vans and go up to 26 foot trucks.
• He rented trucks, cleaned them, and checked them in.
• If they have a reservation they would check the driver’s license and credit card, enter it into system, show vehicle and give them keys.
• The person renting the car has to be there. If someone else is the driver they check those licenses too but the person whose name is on the reservation has to be there.
• Exhibit 239 is Budget rental contract with the insurance waiver and damage inspection sheet.
• Johnson was there when the person who rented the vehicle went over the forms.
• He points out the name on the agreement; it says Letecia Stauch. He verified the identity by looking for a driver’s license and the form of payment which must match the license.
• The form has the last 4 numbers of the driver’s license number and the state it was issued in - South Carolina.
• The rental agreement was opened on February 1st 2020 at 8:17 AM.
• Letecia did not purchase any insurance; she did not have questions about the financial responsibility she was taking on.
• This particular van only had some scrapes on it like it had brushed against a tree; no actual physical damage to it at all.
• Johnson interacted with Letecia but would probably not recognize her due to the number of trucks he has rented out and how much time has passed.
• He had no concerns she didn’t understand the forms, everything felt normal; he has had customers before he felt uncomfortable to rent to like people who smelled like alcohol. If he had concerns during the agreement process he would have stopped the process.
• He had no concerns that Letecia did not understand the terms of the rental agreement.

Juror questions

• When was the Budget rental van reservation made?: Unknown, it only shows the day they picked up the truck they reserved.
• Where was the van to be turned in on February 5th 2020?: In Grapevine, TX.

Followup

• When someone reserves a van they choose the return location.
• As long as its within 50 miles of the original location you can drop it off with no fees or additional charges; if they return it to a different location, fees will be incurred based on distance.
• Johnson does not know where the van was ultimately dropped of because he does not have the log with him.