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Iraq Vet Trapped In Kafkaesque Parking Ticket Nightmare
By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 10, 2010
Modified Nov 11, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 10, 2010
Modified Nov 11, 2010
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Imagine you've spent months fighting in Iraq, surrounded by hostile locals who don't want you there, and ignored by the folks at home who can't bother paying attention to what our government is doing with their $845 billion mission. You've finally returned from that sunstroke-inducing hell, the experience of which will forever haunt and partially define your life. And how are you welcomed back into civilian life? With a Kafkaesque journey into parking ticket hell.
Marine and Iraq war veteran Mike Godoy and his wife Amy have received a bill of $1,794.80 for more than ten unpaid parking tickets and fines on their someone else's UPS truck. The driver of that UPS truck told Fox that he receives one or two tickets a day. But because the officer issuing the tickets has sloppy handwriting when noting the UPS license plate number, making what should be a JY look like a JX, the Godoys have been sent the bill. The JX corresponds with a car that Mike used to own and got rid of in 2007. Although the plates were destroyed, the listing and the connection to Mike remain in the state computer.
So Mike brought this evidence, proving he has nothing to do with the car in violation, to a Judge—certainly this confusion could easily be fixed: "I brought the receipt for those [10] tickets that were turned in to judge and he said, 'Not sufficient evidence,'" Mike said. Then later, Mike received six more tickets in the mail for the UPS truck. But this time, that same Judge agreed to dismiss them, but refused to do anything to overturn his previous ruling. But hey, that's how it goes with the Court—it receives you when you come, and it dismisses you when you make rational arguments to dismiss parking tickets that aren't yours.
"We are a young couple trying to make it and I am constantly taking off from working trying to handle these tickets that aren't even mine," Mike said. His wife Amy was even more pragmatic: "I'm worried that its going to ruin our credit. We could lose our house because of all of this." Sure, it is not necessary to accept everything as true—one must only accept it as necessary. But at this point, wouldn't anyone rather turn into a cockroach then deal with this crap?
Tagged
confusion
iraq
judge
kafkaesque
parking tickets
ups truck
veteran
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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