It just looked like an easy $500.

The Craigslist ad posted last week offered cash to haul pieces of a trailer off a property in Yamhill County.

"Doublewide Trailer - I will pay you to take," the ad read. "$500 for each half. You will get the cash for each half when it is off our property as you are towing it away."

Derek Brandon Conley, 35, authorities say, figured he was the right man for the job. So he arrived at the property on Saturday with a white tow truck to collect the first half of the mobile home.

A problem soon set in though: What to do with it?

His solution, authorities say, was to dump half of the decrepit double-wide in the parking lot at Echo Shaw Elementary School. Then, seeing how well that went, he figured he'd return for the second half and another $500 pay day, police say.

On Monday, Conley called the mobile home owner to say he'd be more than happy to haul off the rest of the trailer, said Deputy Jeff Talbot, a Washington County sheriff's spokesman.

"He was back last night for the second half," Talbot said.

But that's when the wheels came off. Waiting for him were a pair of deputies, who questioned and later arrested Conley.

Conley, a Portland resident with a decadeslong rap sheet, was booked in the Washington County Jail on suspicion of second-degree criminal mischief and offensive littering.

Conley also has an outstanding warrant in Multnomah County related to a 2017 felon in possession of a firearm conviction.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh