I recently bought my first house and as I am required went to the office of motor vehicles to change my address. I was told my license was suspended due to failure to appear in court in 2006.
Back Story:
In 2006 I took a new job with a company that was moved due to Katrina. I then moved to Alexandria,LA for 2 months due to this before my company decided to relocate to Baton Rouge. In May of 2006 I was driving to Baton Rouge to look at some houses I targeted. I had my cruise control set at 72mph as my car generally overclocks by 2mph. Outside of Opelousas a SUV flew by me and then I saw a state trooper from the opposite side of the interstate turn through the median and begin to chase him. It seemed that the trooper gave up on that chase then decided to pull me over. He wrote me a ticket for going 90mph in a 70. I told him that had to be the SUV that passed me. He said the SUV that passed you was going 76mph. huh? right well I decided to fight the ticket. But the next day I wrote a letter to the Assistant DA explaining my story in detail. I received an email back saying my email was forwared on from their network admin. But I never heard back from anyone. One month later my court date showed up. I had to take off of work and make up that time later due to not having vacation yet. I drove an hour and a half to get to court to find that my ticket was not in the St Landry Parish roster. The guy at the table I assume was an ADA since he was negotiating deals with others told me to call in 30 days to see if anything showed up. Well I called 30 days later and they still had nothing.
Since this even I have renewed my license in Jan of 2007 and renewed registration last year. I do not speed and prior to this was only pulled over one time in my entire driving career. I had no way of knowing my license was suspended sometime in the last 4 years until this week.
I called the DA's office and spoke with the supervisor of their traffic department who all but blamed me for not following up on my original email. She said they had my email in their file and had notes that the DA pulled my ticket from the roster to offer me a pretrial diversion. They mailed that to my address on the ticket. The same one I explained to the officer was not current as I was moving a lot in the last 3 months. After some time she told me I would have to drive to St Landry parish to request a new court date IN PERSON. The local DMV told me I cannot even apply for a hardship license without a court date or reinstate until fines are paid. So I am forced to drive with a suspended license. PLEASE help.. What are my real options here? I have tried contacting a traffic lawyer and he said he could fix all this for 600 dollars. I know the lady said my pretrial diversion was 65 dollars and non-moving violation. But I was innocent of the original charge to begin with and now just feel like my rights were violated since I was not given my day in court.
Back Story:
In 2006 I took a new job with a company that was moved due to Katrina. I then moved to Alexandria,LA for 2 months due to this before my company decided to relocate to Baton Rouge. In May of 2006 I was driving to Baton Rouge to look at some houses I targeted. I had my cruise control set at 72mph as my car generally overclocks by 2mph. Outside of Opelousas a SUV flew by me and then I saw a state trooper from the opposite side of the interstate turn through the median and begin to chase him. It seemed that the trooper gave up on that chase then decided to pull me over. He wrote me a ticket for going 90mph in a 70. I told him that had to be the SUV that passed me. He said the SUV that passed you was going 76mph. huh? right well I decided to fight the ticket. But the next day I wrote a letter to the Assistant DA explaining my story in detail. I received an email back saying my email was forwared on from their network admin. But I never heard back from anyone. One month later my court date showed up. I had to take off of work and make up that time later due to not having vacation yet. I drove an hour and a half to get to court to find that my ticket was not in the St Landry Parish roster. The guy at the table I assume was an ADA since he was negotiating deals with others told me to call in 30 days to see if anything showed up. Well I called 30 days later and they still had nothing.
Since this even I have renewed my license in Jan of 2007 and renewed registration last year. I do not speed and prior to this was only pulled over one time in my entire driving career. I had no way of knowing my license was suspended sometime in the last 4 years until this week.
I called the DA's office and spoke with the supervisor of their traffic department who all but blamed me for not following up on my original email. She said they had my email in their file and had notes that the DA pulled my ticket from the roster to offer me a pretrial diversion. They mailed that to my address on the ticket. The same one I explained to the officer was not current as I was moving a lot in the last 3 months. After some time she told me I would have to drive to St Landry parish to request a new court date IN PERSON. The local DMV told me I cannot even apply for a hardship license without a court date or reinstate until fines are paid. So I am forced to drive with a suspended license. PLEASE help.. What are my real options here? I have tried contacting a traffic lawyer and he said he could fix all this for 600 dollars. I know the lady said my pretrial diversion was 65 dollars and non-moving violation. But I was innocent of the original charge to begin with and now just feel like my rights were violated since I was not given my day in court.
