Help needed.

I am in desperate need of assistance. Yesterday in the mail I received a default judgement on a traffic ticket. This ticket was issued for parking in a tow-away zone at N School and Loi Kalo St at 6:30am Monday, January 28, 2002.

The problem is, I live in Kailua, and have never been on Loi Kalo street. Especially not at 6:30am. Obviously this is a huge mistake, but how can I prove my innocence?

The story gets weirder. My car was stolen December 3, 2001, and not returned to me until Thursday, January 24. I had both plates on my car when it was returned to me, and the locks were changed. At the time I lived alone, and I held all known copies of my keys.

The traffic ticket describes my car, a white 2 door Acura, license JGV 162, perfectly. There is no VIN number. Since the ticket was for parking in a tow-away zone, you'd think the car would have been towed, but I have no way of knowing if a white 2 door Acura was towed from N School St. on the morning of January 28, 2002. Certainly my car wasn't.

I feel so helpless. The fact that I can be accused of a crime I certainly did not commit, with unknown options for proving my innocence, frightens me.

My email logs show I was home Sunday night and Monday morning, working on my personal web site, but the logs only prove I was in front of my computer just after 9am Monday morning.

I have been told I can contest the ticket, provided I have $70 cash (the ticket value) for bail. But what judge will believe me, when all I've got going for me is that common sense says Kailua haole girls ought not have 1999 Integras in Kalihi at 6:30am.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

If that's a tow-away zone, you might be able to see what firm has the towing contract for that area and check with their records to see if they have some other Acura towed then, and there's some error in the plate numbers.

Flailing around, I know, but...

I think the fact that your car was stolen at around that time (although technically returned before the ticket was issued?) should be a helpful mitigating circumstance.

When your stolen car was recovered (by HPD, I presume), I don't suppose it was found in Kalihi?

Interesting, though, that your first notice seems to be a 'default judgement' - usually that comes only after you've failed to respond to an earlier notice. (Though of course the ticket on the car itself counts, and for most folks they end up in "default judgement land" because some wandering moron decided to remove the ticket for yucks.)

So what's happened?

I found that Islandwide Towing has the contract for that area, and they didn't tow any Acuras that morning.

I talked to the repair shop where my car spent 45 days (it was recovered in Salt Lake, hours after being stolen- I have to say the thieves were rather nice, for car thieves, since they only wanted the tires and rims, not even touching anything else) and they say no spare keys were made other than the ones I received.

Oh, and I've lost the default judgement notice- I'm reasonably certain when I handed it to the traffic citation department employee to look up the original ticket, she never gave it back. So I have to track that down now. Aaargh.

Aaargh, indeed. Hmmm...if I think of anything I'll let you know.

I'm happy to report that, after posting baill for the full amount of the ticket and filing a motion to contest, I got the ticket dismissed and a check for the bail money. Yay!

Congrats! I had hoped for the best. Given the complexity (or just plain bizarre-ness) of your situation, I couldn't see how any reasonable judge could hold anyone to that ticket.

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