The Baltimore parking agent accused of writing dozens of bogus tickets is still on the city payroll, officials confirmed today.
At aTuesday news conference, Department of Transportation Director Alfred Foxx parried questions about the employment status of the agent identified as H. West.
“The matter is still under investigation,” he said.
Foxx defended his agency, arguing that despite more reports of bogus tickets issued by the city, the problem of fake citations was limited to only a single agent.
“I do not believe that any agent, other than the one, would intentionally write a false ticket,” Foxx said.
“They work hard and do a good job,” he added.
Assurances also were made that people who received bogus tickets were notified, justifying the apparent reluctance of the city agency to release details of its own investigation of fake ticketing.
“We wrote to all the people affected and let them know they had been ticketed in error,” Foxx said.
The DOT said it did not know at press time the exact number of people alerted by the city that the parking tickets they received were fake.
The Examiner first revealed that at least one agent had written bogus parking tickets in a series of articles. The DOT admitted fake tickets were written but said the scam was limited to a single agent.
However, as more complaints surfaced of motorists claiming they received bogus tickets and other agents named, Mayor Sheila Dixon requested an investigation by the city?s inspector general, Hilton Green.
Meanwhile, the difficulties of a Howard County schoolteacher illustrate the frustration of people who believe they too are victims of fake ticketing.
“I knew I didn?t do it. Why would I let them get away with this? It obviously wasn?t just a typo of the ticket,” said Erica Prentice, a former city resident who said she received two citations in the mail for being parked on East Randle Street on Oct. 25, 2006, and East Hanover Street on Oct. 23, 2006, twoplaces she said she had never been.
Armed with a letter from her employer stating she was in Annapolis the day the Randle Street ticket was issued, Prentice found herself confronting ticket agent H. West ? and a hostile judge.
“The judge asked the agent if she had the original ticket, and she said no, so the ticket was dismissed,” Prentice said.
But she was not satisfied.
“I had hoped that stating my case was going to be an opportunity to alert the judge of a pattern, but she was unwilling to listen to myself or others who had almost identical cases.”
Prentice proceeded to present her paperwork to traffic Judge Joan Gordon Bossman of District Court. But her pleas were met with deaf ears.
“The judge was not very nice,” Prentice said. “I made my case, and then the judge berated me in front of the entire courtroom. The judge blamed it all on me.”
“Finally someone stood up and said, ?This is unbelievable,? and the judge threw them out of the courtroom,” she added.
“It was terrible.”
Bossman did not return several calls for comment.
REPORTING TICKETS
People who believe they have received bogus parking tickets may call the city?s Office of Inspector General, the agency that investigates city employee fraud. The office?s hot line is 1-800-417-0430.
