Posted on 09/16/2007 8:15:23 AM PDT by buccaneer81
Man Jailed Over 50-Cent Toll Mass. Resident Considering Lawsuit
POSTED: 6:49 am EDT September 14, 2007 UPDATED: 1:18 pm EDT September 15, 2007
ROCHESTER, N.H. -- A Massachusetts man who insists his New Hampshire highway tokens are still valid just spent three days in jail because he insisted on using two tokens to pay a 50-cent toll.
Thomas Jensen, 68, of Braintree, said the state broke a contract with him and everyone else who bought tokens by refusing to accept them after January of last year. He was convicted of theft of services for continuing to use tokens after they were phased out.
‘‘I gave the state of New Hampshire money for the tokens, and I expect to be able to use them,’’ Jensen told The Patriot Ledger.
Jensen was driving to his New Hampshire summer home when he tried to pay the 50-cent toll with tokens, as he had always done.
The toll worker refused to take them and a state trooper at the plaza gave Jensen a citation.
‘‘(The trooper) said, ‘Just give him the 50 cents.’ I said, ‘I did, I gave him two tokens,’’’ Jensen told the newspaper.
Monday, a judge told Jensen he could pay a $150 fine, do community service or go to jail for three days. He choose jail.
‘‘Over my dead body was I going to give the state another dollar for the tolls,’’ Jensen said.
He told the newspaper that the jail was a clean, new facility and that the food was better than expected. He said he spent his time in jail talking with other inmates.
Jensen never told his wife he was in jail. Beverly Jensen said she only found out when asked by a television news reporter.
After being set free Thursday, Jensen said he's considering a lawsuit. He said the state should just accept tokens until they're all used up.
‘‘I just get offended by people trying to do me wrong,’’ he said. ‘‘They stole the value of these tokens from me.’’
If he had three days to spare, why not make the statement?
You could say similar things about the Founding Fathers. I for one like the spirit of this man. He is standing on principle not expediency - a rarity these days.
By the time I got it all out of my system a year and a half later (I won't give any details about how I did it), I estimate that I got away with about $500 worth of unpaid tolls.
Really?
Well, what is a principle worth now days, Buccaneer?
let me tell you a story about a man named charlie on that tragic and fateful day
he put ten cents in his pocket kissed his wife and family went to ride on the mta.
let me tell you a story about a man named charlie on that tragic and fateful day
he put ten cents in his pocket kissed his wife and family went to ride on the mta.
I understand his willingness to not pay.
Sometimes it just goes too far to sit back and allow the stupidity to continue and pay just for the convenience instead of making the point of government concern for finances outweighing the freedom of honest people.
By forcing their hand and making them either admit they were wrong or put him in jail he has laid the groundwork to sue. And on this issue I think he should. It is common practice by many government agencies to allow the use of "whatever" by citizens untill it is gone or used up. I am specifically referring to EPA regs regarding fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides. After a reg has something removed from public sale whatever is "out there" is commonly allowed to be used until it is all gone without any set time limit.
This principle alone would be enough to base the suite on but I believe there are other examples that are closer to the guys situation. Also, when the Tokens were sold there was no expiration date. It's not like a bus ticket that is sold with an expiration date and time printed on it.
I think the guy can do it and it sounds like he has the will to get in their face.
toll ping
“And on this issue I think he should. It is common practice by many government agencies to allow the use of “whatever” by citizens untill it is gone or used up.”
You mean like the US Post Office? Exactly the same issue as raising the price of a first class letter. Your old stamps aren’t good enough any more.
There you go. Make the state pay for you to be in jail. Don't give them one red cent.
I'm so proud of my state, we sure showed him. < /sarcasm >
A law like this gets enforced, as we let illegal aliens overrun our country. Mind boggling.
So the trooper arrests him, has the court date, the judge and three-days in the slammer. A lot more than 50 cents.
New Hampshire. Live Free or Die.
Another former New Hampshire resident who stood on principle - Carl Drega.
Unfortunately he may have to pay a ‘NH’ lawyer to succeed!
Yes they are. They still have their value. If stamps cost 39 cents and are raised to 41 cents, and you have a bunch of 39-cent stamps, you can buy some 2-cent stamps at the post office and use them with your 39-cent stamps to give you the needed 41-cent postage.
THAT sounds like theft of services.
So what’s it cost to send a person to jail for three days? When all aspects are included—court staff, jail staff, paperwork, food, facilities costs, etc—it’s got to be at least ten thousand dollars.
Maybe the guy can take comfort in knowing that they spent ten grand or so on him to teach him to pay his 50 cents to the state.
A friend of mine went to the Brevard county jail in Florida for a week or two. Said it was like camp.
Played gin rumy, read, basketball,chess slept and generally had a pleasant time.
Food was a bit crummy.
With all the toll roads planned for Texas, where no toll roads have gone before, guess we’ll just have a DPS trooper take the guy off to the side of the road and shoot him.
Don’t much matter what we think about toll roads, so why bother with a judge and the expense of feeding the guy in one of our jails? Just shoot em.
But you have a point. However, something does not have to be universally perfect to be used as a precedence in a legal case.
Not so. If you bought a roll of $0.34 stamps you can still use them; you just have to add additional stamps to bring the amount paid to the current cost of mailing a first-class letter. The USPS will accept the $0.34 stamps that you've already paid for.
In this case, N.H. went from a token-based system to an electronic-based system. You used to be able to buy a roll of 40 tokens for $5.00 and use the tokens in place of quarters at N.H. tollbooths (a 50% discount). Now you have to have an "EZ-Pass" module stuck to your windshield and you only get a 33% discount. This guy already gave N.H. money for the tokens and now N.H. doesn't want to keep their end of the bargain.
There's really no reason that N.H. can't accept the tokens until they're out of the system.
Your old stamps may not have enough value for the new rates, but you can still use them as long as you add the proper additional postage.
In the case of the tolls, if I am not mistaken, the state refused to accept the older tokens. That is a big difference from the USPS.
If the post office refused to accept certain stamps after raising rates, there would be an uproar from every single town and city in this country.
No, but his wife goes down to the Scully Square station every day at quarter past two and through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich.
That was probably an administrative law judge. They don’t really hold a trial and it has nothing to do with justice. He just stamps officer dick head’s allegation. He should sue the toll authority for conspiracy and theft, and whatever else he can.
No, he never returned.
The guy did the right thing. He paid for the tokens, and he should be able to use them.
That's right and the uproar would be justified. In this case they don't care about uproar, because only a few were going to be holding these tokens. This is the same as rejecting money after a certain date.
No one's going to care about folks like this guy, so the homos at the toll authority and their phoney court, don't expect pitchforks and torches. As far as the cop goes, he's in on it too as their thug enforcer.
This dude has lots of spunk and cajones. Sign him up and loan him to the Republicans down in Washington!
I understand what all of you are saying. And I agree that standing up for principle is the right thing to do. I guess my 13 day stint in a county jail years ago (false domestic accusation during a divorce,yada,yada) would make me hesitate to revisit the pokey over 50 cents.
WTF? They don't talk much, do they?
Oh, I think most of us who've had dealings with TPS Troopers feel pretty much as you do. I just left off the smiley. :-)
He's 68, they've probably been married for 45 years. He gets away to the summer place to do his thing and she's glad not to have him underfoot for a few days. Sounds good to me. Too much time together can be a marriage killer.
When I was a programmer in Rochester Hills, MI, I struck up a friendship with a young black guy who told me how he quit a bar at 2 a.m. one Sunday and of a sudden had to take a wiz in the dark alley. He no sooner started when he was lit up by a cruiser's spotlight and hauled off to jail.
He called his mom, who immediately wanted to come down and bail him out. He told her not to worry and he had a clean bed, three meals and a snack and color TV. He used the same phrase "like a camp" to describe his experience.
And his fate is still unlearned...
It's really irrelevant. The State sold the tokens in exchange for the right to travel on their highway. They can offer to buy them back, but under any normal contract he would not be required to accept their offer.
ML/NJ
Correction to earlier: Even with the discount, you’re still looking at $216 in tokens. Just another case of a guy who pisses and moans about a buck. Now if the guy had a Fast Pass and got mailed a ticket (as has happened here), I’d totally be on his side.
POOR OLD CHARLIE!
They should have taken the tokens or given him 50 cents for them.
Our biggest threat is our own government. Not terrorism, not illegal immigration, not abortion, not gun control, its our own government that is the problem. We need to get rid of as much of it as possible.
John
A ten dollar gold piece from 1790 is still worth $10. It will be, untill the US folds. The same applies to the tokens issued by the toll authority.
"This guy is just another Ma$$hole who comes up here and whines when everything isn't just like their little socialist paradise down south. Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
Selling tokens and later revoking their worth, is fraud and theft.
"the guy was a total tool, according to the local cops and the NHP guys in Dover I've spoken to. "
These thugs are just agreeable to the toll authority's fraud and theft scheme.
"If in fact he still had tokens from two years ago ... then he's the fool for buying them"
The only fools are the folks that are content with this BS, and think it's justified.
I'm always amazed that people will get their dander up over such a small amount of money as compared to the level of thievery the state pulls off every year in fees and taxation. Would he be willing to go to jail about his taxes?
I do applaud the man for standing up for his principles
bump
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