As the investigations into fake parking tickets written by Baltimore City agents continue, Inspector General Hilton Green says he is trying to determine how many bogus tickets were written by the agent H. West, whom he suspended without pay in November.
“That?s what we?re looking at right now,” he said. “We want to be thorough, and we to make sure we have the complete picture and full account for all the details.”
Addressing one of the big unanswered questions of the parking ticket scandal ? how many people were victimized by agents writing either fake or unwarranted tickets ? Green said in a phone interview Monday that the probe was taking precedence within his agency.
“This is our top priority right now,” Green said.
Promising to issue a report, along with recommendations for changes within the parking enforcement agency, Green said he was continuing to meet with Department of Transportation officials to determine how far-reaching the fake tickets issue has become.
In November,Green said he had received 68 complaints from motorists claiming they had received bogus tickets. He would not give a more recent number.
The Examiner first reported several stories of area motorists who complained they had received illegitimate parking tickets, including multiple tickets to drivers in places where they claimed they were not parked.
After a series of articles in The Examiner documenting more cases of motorists claiming they got bogus tickets, Mayor Sheila Dixon requested an investigation by Green.
The city?s Transportation Department admitted in October that at least one agent had written bogus tickets and been suspended without pay.
Still, questions and frustrations have remained for many victims of the scam, as they try to clear up state flag fees and penalties incurred, sometimes before they were even aware they had received an unwarranted citation.
Such is the case for Severna Park resident Daniel Leyton, 66, a recipient of a ticket alleging he was illegally parked near the city?s Lexington Market on the afternoon of July 3, 2007. The citation he received in the mail in October noted an unspecified parking violation that Leyton didn?t know he had.
“I thought it was odd because I hadn?t been to the city for over three years,” Leyton, the assistant director of public works for the city of Bowie, said in a phone interview.
Determined to prove his innocence, Leyton showed up in Baltimore traffic courts twice armed with his own personnel file showing both he ? and his car ?- were 28 miles away at his job when the ticket was issued.
“It wasn?t about the money; I wanted to let people know something strange was going on,” he said.
