When Antonio Brown’s 2003 Volkswagen Passat was towed by Baltimore City for two unpaid parking tickets on Oct. 17, he wasn’t happy but was willing to pay the roughly $600 in past-due fines and towing fees to get his car back.
“I didn’t have the money to pay right away, but I wanted my car, so I kept calling the impound lot to make sure the car was still there,” Brown said Thursday afternoon, sitting in the living room of his mother’s East Baltimore home.
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But when Brown, a 37-year-old counselor who works with mentally retarded adults at the National Career Institute for Alternatives in West Baltimore, finally showed up at the city impound lot to retrieve his vehicle on Oct. 31, the clerk had shocking news.
“She said someone already picked up my car.”
What the clerk told Brown next, he still finds hard to believe.
“She said I signed a letter giving permission to a Juan Smith to pick up my car,” Brown recalled.
“I said, ‘I don’t know anybody named Juan Smith!’
“I never signed anything,” Brown said.
Now the disappearance of Brown’s car has become part of an internal police investigation of the city’s Pulaski Highway impound lot, a probe that comes on the heels of the suspension of a Baltimore police officer in September for allegedly tampering with the records of vehicles brought onto the lot.
“This matter is under investigation by the city police department; they are handling it,” said Adrienne Barnes, spokeswoman for the city Department of Transportation, which manages the impound lot. “They handle any improprieties that occur on the lot.”
Baltimore police spokesman Troy Harris confirmed that the investigation into the whereabouts of Brown’s car is ongoing.
Letter withheld
But while Brown waits to find out what happened to his car, certain details trouble him — such as the impound lot clerk’s refusal to give him a copy of the letter he allegedly signed authorizing the vehicle’s release.
“She held it up for a few seconds in front of the glass window but wouldn’t let me read it,” Brown recounted. “All I could see was the name Juan Smith written in block letters; it didn’t look like a signature.
“I asked for a copy, but she said no.”
The clerk also refused to give Brown the address “Juan Smith” had provided to impound lot officials when he picked up the car, Brown said.
“After I reported the car stolen, the police told me Juan Smith lives in Annapolis, but they won’t tell me anything else.”
“If they give me the address, I can pick up the car myself.”
Was it an inside job?
Because the impound lot regulations require a copy of the car’s registration or title along with personal identification and a notarized letter to claim a vehicle, Brown’s mother, Viola Perry, a nurse’s aide at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said she thinks impound lot employees may be involved.
“His registration was in the glove box of the car, so it had to be an inside job,” Perry said. “And why wouldn’t they give us a copy of the letter?”
Barnes said police have discretion to withhold information.
“When it’s under investigation, police decide what can be released,” she said, responding to questions as to why a copy of the letter was not given to Brown.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that Brown still has the only key to his car.
“I have the key,” said Brown, holding it up. “This key works with the alarm system. I don’t how they’re driving the car.”
Since reporting his car stolen to police at the impound lot, Brown said he has not been updated on the status of the investigation.
“My insurance company says it’s still being investigated and the police haven’t called me back,” Brown said.
“But the bottom line is: I don’t have a car.”
Probes of impound lot rack upThis has been a troubled year at Baltimore’s impound lot.
Hilton Green, the city’s inspector general, has started two separate investigations into dealings at the Pulaski Highway facility that stores cars towed from accident scenes, stolen vehicles and autos impounded for unpaid parking tickets.
Green’s probe into the purchase of a boat by city Department of Transportation Deputy Director Anthony Wallnofer Jr. from Frankford Towing revealed the boat was bought by a company that was lobbying the city for increased towing fees and later sold to Wallnofer. The investigation led to Wallnofer’s resignation.
A month later, Green began an investigation into the use of a GMC 2007 Acadia by the Baltimore Police Department. The truck was neither auctioned nor seized through drug forfeiture proceedings as required by law, but was removed from the impound lot. Green said that investigation is ongoing.
In September, a yet-to-be-identified city police officer was suspended for taking part in a scheme to illegally remove vehicles from the lot, high-ranking sources said, but so far police have not released details of that investigation.
