Joined: 02-08-2007 Posts: 44,308
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dpnewell wrote:Bucky, not only are there some bad cops, but judges too. 5-6 years ago, I got a summons from NY City for failure to pay a parking ticket. In my entire life, I've never driven in NY City. I looked the ticket up online, and found they had ticketed a white cargo van. My vehicle was a dark gray pickup truck. I made a copy of my registration, showing that it was for a dark gray pickup truck, and entered an innocent plea by mail, including a letter describing their mistake. I figured that was the end of that.
A couple weeks later, I got a letter from NY City, stating that "wrong vehicle color" was not a justifiable defense in NY City, the judge had found me guilty, and I was required to pay the fine plus court costs. Never mind that I made it very clear in the letter that they had ticketed a cargo van, and I owned a pickup truck.
If I wanted to appeal the judge's decision, I would have to make a court date, take off from work, drive 3 hours to NY City, pay parking, and sit in court all day. They knew they had me by the balls. I was ready to ignore the conviction, until a lawyer friend told me that Jersey and NY had a reciprocal agreement, and if I didn't pay the fine, NJ wouldn't renew my vehicle registration until I did. In hind site, I should have gone to the local TV stations and made a public stink, but instead, I submitted to their black mail, and paid the fine. a few years ago my daughter had a similar situation. she owned a honda but different color, was told she got tagged parking next to a hydrant in NYC. Lawyer friend made some calls, was told it must be paid in order to appeal. He subsequently found out that there was a wide ranging scam being run by NYC P.D./traffic dept on neighboring states (we are in MA) and that it was a lost cause. They were looking up registration numbers and writing fake tickets all over town, guessing the color of vehicles. Cute. Gene and Robert are correct though...drinking and driving is a horrendous problem.
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