This is a pretty surprising situation, and I just became aware of it today.
In December, I was pulled over and ticketed for driving 16 MPH over the speed limit, by a CHP officier using laser. California is broke, so they jack up the ticket amounts. It was $367 for the ticket, plus another $68 "trafic school processing fee" if I wanted to attend traffic school.
As has been my standard play in these situations, I tried to contest it through a "trial by declaration". When you make a trial by declaration, you do everything by mail. You never set foot in the court. Prior to about 10 years ago, this wasn't the optimal way of handling things, as cops tended to not show up to ticket hearings, and you would win. However, this has changed (at least in California), and now your best bet to win is to do these trials by declaration, and hope that the officer either forgets or doesn't want to fill out the paperwork in response.
Anyway, I submitted my Trial By Delcaration form in February, along with two checks -- one for $367, and one for $68. In my declaration, I asked the judge to give me traffic school instead of the point on my record if he finds me guilty. That's why I included the separate $68 check.
The one big risk in doing this by mail is that you are screwed if it gets lost somehow and they never receive it. So I obsessively checked on the county's website to make sure that they actually got it. On February 11, I was pleased to see the following:
You're supposed to read the above from bottom-to-top.
Anyway, on February 11th (ironically the same day the shit hit the fan with Micon), they received my Trial by Delcaration form, as well as my $367+68 bail money. Great.
Except something was weird. Cash bail posted by Guzman, Guillermo?!
Who is Guillermo Guzman? I wondered that at the time, and why did it say "cash bail"? I assumed that Mr. Guzman must work for them and processed it, and that checks received are considered "cash". I decided it wasn't that suspicious, as there didn't seem to be anything that could go wrong. The court acknowledged receiving the money I sent, so what could happen? I decided to ignore this oddity.
I received my decision on March 19th. I was found guilty, with traffic school granted. I did have one pleasant surprise. My pricey $367 ticket was reduced by $128, so the court owed me a $128 refund. Note that I did not ask for a reduction, and was surprised that the judge granted this to me on his own, but I wasn't complaining.
Nearly a month passed, and I didn't receive the $128. I called the court, and was told they have 30 days to mail it, so I hadn't allowed enough time to pass.
It has been 2 months by this point, so I called the court again today. I was told that the check was mailed on March 25th. Damnit. Must have gotten lost or something. I was transferred to the department to reissue it. That's when they dropped the bombshell on me.
Your bail was posted by Guillermo Guzman. He requested that we mail any refund to him.
Indeed, they mailed the check to Guillermo back in March, and it had his name on it. I had no idea this could be done -- basically that the person posting bail for a third party could directly receive any refund issued.
But wait! These were my checks in my name. How did Guillermo pull this off?
At first I figured that he modified my checks and cashed them himself, and then brought cash over to the court on my behalf, claiming that it was his money and that he wanted any refund.
However, I checked with my bank, and both checks were deposited by the court, and the money was cashed into the court's accounts.
It now seems that Guillermo stole my checks, then walked them into the payment department himself, claimed that he was the one posting my bail, and had them change the name and address for the refund to his.
I also researched the term "cash bail" today, and found out that any checks received are listed as "cash bail", so that part is meaningless.
Of course, this leaves various questions unanswered:
1) How did Guillermo claim it was his money (and thereby get the name/address changed) when he was depositing my checks?
2) How did Guillermo get my checks in the first place?
3) Does Guillermo work there? Or is he a friend of someone who works there (I think that's more likely).
4) Was there an accomplice involved at the court, accepting the checks and allowing Guillermo to change it to his name?
Pretty dumb scam, actually, because you'd think this would get caught very easily.
I'm guessing that someone realized this judge issues a lot of reductions, and therefore found this "opportunity" to steal from people's refunds.
The court has been evasive with me thus far, but I am still working to find the right people to speak to about this.
I am going to take this to the police, and the media if necessary.
So strange. I never thought it was even remotely possible that my money paid to a court could be stolen, but that's exactly what happened.
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Originally Posted by shortbuspoker
