An arrest warrant released Tuesday morning provided new details into the case that led to the arrest of former Texas Tech football player Robert James Castaneda, 20.
Castaneda turned himself in on Friday and was released from the Lubbock County Detention Center on a $5,000 bond.
EverythingLubbock.com was first to report specifics of the case such as the address of the burglary – the 4300 block of 43rd Street – and the list of items taken which included several guns. CLICK HERE for our previous story.
When confronted by police, Castaneda admitted he and two others broke into a home during the Christmas break. According to the arrest warrant, police had no leads at first.
On January 23, police thought they got a break in the case. Six gun safes were recovered from a playa lake at North Avenue U and Erskine Street. But none of them matched this home burglary.
Then in late March one of the burglary victims called police to say he found one of his guns at a local business. According to the warrant, this business was not reporting firearms through the LPD’s pawn database.
Police took the gun from the business and returned it to the owner. This led to the name of a man that police tracked. They tracked him to a gun show on April 23 at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center. He told police he had no idea that five guns he bought from Robert Castaneda for $1,400 were stolen.
Police confronted Castaneda on May 3 at home. He admitted what happened, and provided more of the stolen guns. He refused to name who else was with him in the burglary, but said they were also football players. He eventually gave up their jersey numbers.
Two days later Texas Tech announced that Castaneda, Trace Ellison and Dakota Allen were all removed from the football team for failure to uphold student athlete standards.
Ellison was confronted by police first because officers were told he was keeping a stolen gun inside a Texas Tech dorm room, which is a forbidden place for firearms. The warrant said police did find a loaded, stolen handgun in the dorm room.
Ellison and Allen have not been arrested, and if charges have been filed then those are not public record yet.
