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Do they have all the color glossies as evidence?
By daveAdams on Mon, 11/05/2007 - 2:35pm
A friend of mine who lives in Cambridge received a $1000 ticket in the mail for "illegal dumping". When she called Officer #4 to ask why she received this ticket, as she doesn't even live in Boston and hadn't been anywhere near the dump site, she was told "your address was on something we found".
When she asked "what did you find" she was told "we can't tell you because it is evidence against you". She called back and asked for a supervisor, and was directed to a man by the name of - get this - Officer Stockbridge. He also told her that they couldn't tell her what they found because then she might be able to defend herself.
Aside from the sloppy police work (your address was on something) and being told that she has no right to see evidence against her, I'd like to ask the hive mind at UHub: what can she do about this? Where can she turn within the city to get the information she needs to defend herself?
Why should she have to hire a lawyer to protect herself against a forgone conclusion that the city should have to prove? What does the city have to hide? She can prove that she was nowhere around the dump site when the "offense" allegedly occurred, but that may not be enough.Boston doesn't seem to have much use for that pesky little innocence presumption bit in the constitution.
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Comments
Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie...
This sounds suspiciously like a scam. For serious. Did your friend just call the number provided on the $1000 ticket, or did she also look up the actual Cambridge PD number to corroborate, and call them to inquire about this?
It's definitely not police procedure to simply mail you a gazillion dollar ticket and then deny you information on what was found "because then you might be able to defend yourself."
I've heard of fake arrest notices being placed in folks' mailboxes, with an address to pay some bogus outstanding fee in order to "avoid arrest." Bzzt. The scammers prey on those who'd really believe the police would drop a note saying "We're gonna arrest you, by the way" in your mailbox (arrest warrants have to be served.) This $1000 love letter has a similar feel to it.
I'd definitely advise first to call the real Cambridge PD number, if that hasn't been done yet, cos I'm reasonably sure the phone number on your friend's ticket is going to someone's triple-decker rather than Police HQ.
(Also, the Alice's Restaurant references give it away, too. These guys are clever, but not clever enough for CAPTAIN SPATCH OF THE INTERNET PATROL!)
I thought scam, too, but...
She went through the City of Boston and was forwarded through the city switchboard for that very reason.
Yeah, sounds like a scam, but it may be an official one.
boggle! the mind boggles!
The Internet Patrol looks surprised!
It's definitely SO not procedural. Does this request she pay by mail, or by visiting an official location?
The Attorney General's Office?
With all the spotlight on ID theft these days, the Attorney General's office might at least be helpful in getting the BPD to reveal whether it was your friend's trash that was found at the dump site. It's possible someone stole her trash looking for the type of info needed for identity theft, or even fraud (looking for CC numbers, etc) -- and then dumped the trash when they were done with it.
The AG's office is a resource for people who've been victimized by, or are trying to prevent, identity theft. Might be worth a shot.
Officer Stockbridge works
Officer Stockbridge works for Inspectional Services in Boston so this sounds like a real ticket. My advice is to get a lot more specifics as to what happened here and have your friend check her bank accounts, credit reports, etc to make sure her identity hasn't been stolen. Based on the little info you gave, sounds like someone left a lot of trash bags somewhere and the city got called on it, opened it up and found some mail with your friend's name on in. Any citation issued by ISD can be appealed to Boston Municipal Court so if she has a lawyer, tell her to have him figure out the deal there. Also, there's usually a time period within which the ticket must be paid so tell her to be aware of that as well.
There's this thing called discovery
Since this would be a criminal matter, the police would be required to hand over any evidence against her in a trial proceeding. I would go the distance on this as the city is clearly wrong.
The city loves to send out
The city loves to send out tickets for these kind of things. One of the free weeklies got a $1000 tix because the contents of one of their very legal boxes were scattered down the street. It was obviously their fault.
The City Gives no Details!
It is very hard to get details when the city is (illegally) embargoing the information.
We are environmental professionals - and a false conviction means serious professional issues. I think she very well could sue the city given their obstruction of information here. They clearly are not interested in finding out truth, just about pushing people around.
They didn't pick a good person to pick on as our boss' boss is very well connected and very pissed off. I also have some media contacts and they have, well, been contacted.
Thanks for all the background info. Sounds like yet another agency that is far more interested in being punitive and arbitrary and pushy than actually, you know, being effective?
Not a criminal matter, it's
Not a criminal matter, it's a code violation. Chris "Tiger" Stockbrigde works for Code Enforcement.