Woman on the hook for DC traffic tickets due to temporary tag issue

Temporary tags leave woman on the hook for tickets

Fake license plates are causing trouble across our region and FOX 5 is talking to a woman who’s paying the price. Lindsay Watts has the story.

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Fake license plates are causing trouble across our region and one woman is paying the price after she says someone faked her temporary tags.

Ashley Baker is on the hook for D.C. traffic tickets she says someone else is racking up.

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"There have to be other people out there struggling with this exact same nightmare," Baker said.

When she got a photo enforcement ticket in the mail in April, she thought the evidence it wasn’t her car was black and white. For one, her car is a black Subaru and the car in the photo is a white Ford.

"When this photo ticket arrived, it was obvious it wasn’t my car even though those tags were the same," said Baker. "So I contested the ticket."

Baker said she shredded her new car’s temporary tags last year when she got her permanent plates and didn’t think about it again until she got the ticket showing the white Ford with her same Virginia temporary tag. The car failed to come to a stop at a red light in northeast, according to the ticket.

She says she provided the DC DMV with all the evidence she had that it was not her car.

"I got a notice back a couple of weeks later that, no, they did not accept that as proof. That I didn’t prove to them that I disposed of my tags," she said.

She had to pay the $100 ticket to take it to court, where she lost again despite providing a letter from Virginia’s DMV where a special agent said he found no criminal intent or activity on her behalf and raised the possibility the tags on the Ford were fraudulent.

Then Baker realized there was another outstanding ticket in her name, this one overdue.

FOX 5 was told D.C. DMV Director Gabriel Robinson wasn’t available for an interview Monday, but he provided a statement saying in part:

"While we cannot comment on specific details related to active cases being adjudicated, DC DMV is conducting an internal review of this matter."

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"Maybe we’ll see what this internal investigation pulls up, or I’m just on the hook for $100 tickets every couple months," Baker said.

Also on Monday, D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh tweeted that fake tags are on the rise in the city. She said that along with problems with the city’s booting and towing system would be addressed in a meeting on Dec. 6.