Ticket-Fixing At Nassau County Traffic Court

Six clerks at the Nassau County Traffic And Parking Violations Agency were fired this week for ticket-fixing. This agency, located at 16 Cooper Street in Hempstead, handles roughly 300,000 traffic tickets, speeding tickets and parking tickets issued in Nassau County. It generates over $28 million for the county and handles roughly 300,000 tickets per year. But, apparently friends and family of these six employees received “VIP” treatment having their cased dismissed without a fine or blemish on their New York driving record.
I personally have been going to this court for years and successfully disposed over 100s of cases in this court. I never witnessed anything improper but, then again, the way this court is set up is very different from most New York traffic courts. You wait in a large courtroom to conference your case. After the conference, you continue to wait in this room. When your case is called, you are escorted with a few other motorists/traffic attorneys into one of three smaller courtrooms for your case to be formally resolved. The lack of openness of the three courtrooms is unique. In most traffic courts, your case is resolved in a more public manner.

The shenanigans here took two forms. First, they were mixed in with legitimate dismissals. Specifically, large stacks of tickets earmarked for dismissal were given to judges and the friend and family tickets were mixed into these stacks. Others were dismissed when clerks went into the court’s computer system and simply deleted them. Other clerks knew New safeguards are being put in place and criminal charges may be brought against the fired employees.