Protection Against Those Charged with Protecting Us - Page 2

Hate to say it, but pay the $250 and go on. A lawyer will cost much more, and defending a D Felony will cost thousands. Simply write it off as a cost of doing business and go on. And your friends are right, almost every judge in Indiana will believe the cop above any of us. I have seen cops lie in court many times, and the judged know and don't care. The criminal justice system assumes we are guilty. It sucks, but keeping your head down is the best option unless you have big bucks to spend on a lawyer.

I for one am glad that we have people protecting the environment. That being said though, I have found that scrappers are more likely to be the ones protecting it then the government. After all, we make money doing this. As a new business owner I know first hand how hard the government makes it for anyone to be in business for themselves. It is almost like they all want us to live in a welfare society.

Originally Posted by ComputerScrapper

Well Friday turned out to be one hell of a crappy day......On the way to the shop I received a call from a man who identified himself as a state conservation officer, saying that he wanted to speak with me. No problem.

Well I get to the shop at the same time as my partner Chris and the officer is there. He walks up and says that he wants to speak to us seperately. So I went back to his truck with him first.

I am thinking that some nut case complained about something to do with the business but I was confused about why they would send a conservation officer.

Well when we got to talking he started asking about Chris and most of the questions revolved around the previous weekend. We took a long weekend off from the shop. It was Chris's father's birthday and he recently lost his father to cancer so he took off to a small camping spot along the river to get away for a few days and do some fishing.

To make a long story short the officer had found a large amount of electronics dumped near the river. Ok, so that is nothing out of the ordinary, but as luck would have it when Chris was there he dropped one of our business cards out of his truck and did not realize it.

So this officer decides that he has caught someone who dumps electronics by the river. Of course my argument was "Why would Chris dump electronics? That is how we make our money."

Well the officer said he figures that Chris was taking electronics from the shop to make money on the side. Still this did not jive because dumping them on the river bank would not make him any money.

Nonetheless, this guy had already decided that Chris was guilty. Then he got to the bad part. He said that if Chris did not agree to accept a ticket for $250 then he was going to have to charge him with a D felony and to announce to the newspapers that my company was involved in a littering case. So Chris and I both when into protection mode.

I had a case of the red a$$ to say the least and I did get quite bent out of shape with this guy and it was a surprise that I did not get myself arrested in the process. But was not going to let this guy soil the name of my company over something like this. I even agreed to send both of my employees to the location to clean up the electronics. I figured why not? They would make us more money. But the officer refused.

In the end Chris took the ticket despite the fact that he did not do anything wrong with the exception of letting the business card fall out of his truck. This was, once again, one of the situations where the officer had made up his mind well before he got any of the facts.

To top it all off the guy had the nerve to ask if I would give him a couple of cables that we had in the shop for his computer!!!!

Unbelievable.

Business cards are to let out, drum up business. threating you with the news paper is blackmail. then the officer steps up to the plate asking for a bribe via the computer cables.

Have you heard of Ombudsman. Your other option is plead not guilty to the ticket maybe the public official will be a no show and the judge will toss the case.

If your partner is the guilty party he's an idiot, find a new partner.

Gustavus

Originally Posted by gustavus

Unbelievable.

Business cards are to let out, drum up business. threating you with the news paper is blackmail. then the officer steps up to the plate asking for a bribe via the computer cables.

Have you heard of Ombudsman. Your other option is plead not guilty to the ticket maybe the public official will be a no show and the judge will toss the case.

If your partner is the guilty party he's an idiot, find a new partner.

Gustavus

Spoke with my attorney this past week and he agreed that there was very little that could be done. It would be $500 minimum to fight the ticket with very little chance that we could win. Just wrote the check and moved on. We went to the location and found what the officer was talking about....The stuff had nothing to do with our business anyway. There were 2 DC power supplies that came off industrial equipment and a few household fans. No circuit boards, computers or monitors in sight.

But no, my partner was not the guilty party, he just had the bad luck of camping in the wrong area at the wrong time. Just a situation where a young conservation officer wanted to close a case and make himself look good. If that is what it takes to make him feel like a man then so be it.

this type of thing really pisses me off! this just like when I got a speeding ticket at 400 in the morning going to work and there are friggin crackheads at the park doing drugs!! I took the ticket and asked why he wasn't running those punks out of town , He just walked away

Originally Posted by ComputerScrapper

Spoke with my attorney this past week and he agreed that there was very little that could be done. It would be $500 minimum to fight the ticket with very little chance that we could win. Just wrote the check and moved on. We went to the location and found what the officer was talking about....The stuff had nothing to do with our business anyway. There were 2 DC power supplies that came off industrial equipment and a few household fans. No circuit boards, computers or monitors in sight.

But no, my partner was not the guilty party, he just had the bad luck of camping in the wrong area at the wrong time. Just a situation where a young conservation officer wanted to close a case and make himself look good. If that is what it takes to make him feel like a man then so be it.

Pleading guilty to an offense your not guilty of, WHY!

That was a dumb move, now you have a written offense on file, that will be used against you in future should you have another issue pop up.

Besides had you plead not guilty the crown would have had to lay out the evidence, the judge would have decided from this wither to take it for trial then you bring in the big guns, your lawyer..

Ahh well it was only money, next time it will be double. Glade it weren't mine.

Regards
Gustavus

Well the whole "dumb move" thing aside I decided that listening to my lawyer was probably the best bet. This is mainly because as an attorney who has practiced for about 25 years in Indiana has a pretty good idea of how things work in this state. Judges tend to ignore anything but what is said by the police which makes for a lot of losses despite a lack of evidence.