HOUSTON -- A tow truck driver who illegally towed $800,000 worth of cars from a parking lot is headed to state prison, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

A Harris County jury found Mike Raitano guilty of aggregate theft and sentenced him to 18 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Raitano towed from a parking lot where he posted his own illegal "no parking" signs after the cars had already been parked.

"Mr. Raitano would post these signs on other peoples' property," said Russel Turbeville, the chief of the Harris County District Attorney's Consumer Fraud Division. "After the occupants were inside someplace, he would post them in case the police came by. He would say, 'See they parked right under my sign,' and he proceeded to tow the vehicle."

Turbeville said Raitano illegally towed 52 cars from a parking lot in the 10100 block of Westheimer Road on March 17, 2006. He said Raitano planned to tow more, until something happened not far away.

"(There was) an incident at a nearby storage lot where the vehicles were towed to where a young girl, about 22, 23 years old, was chain-whipped," Turbeville said. "(She was) hit in the head by one of Mike Raitano's sons because they were disputing their vehicles being towed."

Court records show Raitano had 16 prior misdemeanor convictions or probations.

"Mike Raitano bragged for 20 years that he was the Teflon wrecker that nothing stuck," Turbeville said. "I'm informed by HPD that there are 1,500 wrecker drivers in the city of Houston, and they only have serious complaints about approximately 10 -- and probably the complaints against Mr. Raitano would exceed the other nine. Mike Raitano made himself important by being obnoxious and objectionable and in your face. He gloried in what he did."