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“Known to locals as The Tombs”

I was once wrongly held there over a July 4th weekend. The records had me for an apparent unpaid traffic citation of many years previous. Then the Friday before July 4th I got caught in a traffic “sweep” while passing through Manhattan on my way to work at a consultant gig on Long Island. The cop was a gung ho motorcycle cop whose normal duty was out in Queens.

After I was taken downtown, a serious of errors happened.

First they were supposed to just give me a “DTA” (desk appearance ticket) with a court date that I’d be notified of later; but they didn’t; we went directly down into the Tombs.

And they were not supposed to lose all the paperwork for the whole affair.

48 hours after I was taken six floors down into the tombs, into one of a number of large 30-40-50 person holding areas, with persons responsible for the most minor to the most serious violations, a court staff person finally came looking for me, took me back upstaairs and apologized for my not just getting the DTA to begin with, and with them losing track of me (that first time).

I got the lette for the court date and appeared in the right court on the right date and on time. Then I waited and waited and waited to be called up to the judge - till lunch time and for an hour after lunch, and it never happened. I finally approached the court clerks in the court room, gave them my name and asked why they had not called out my name, yet. They said they had no paper work on me and told me to go upstairs to a particular window. I went to that window and no one there could find any paperwork on me. They sent me upstairs to the Manhattan DA’s office.

Then I got the second aploogy. When I met the assistant DA, she claimed “Ah there you are, we’ve been looking for you”. I told her how I had been in the court room all the time, waiting to hear my name called and no one called it. Then she said “well they should have called your name, and sent you directly up to us, as - and I apologize, there is a problem; we have lost all the paperwork on you, so there are no official charges; just go to a city court and pay the old traffic citation.”

I asked “That’s it, I spent 48 hours in the Tombs for a mistake, and I can just leave now and not worry about it”.

She said “Yes”.

I politely demanded an apology letter be sent to me, signed by the DA, for the record; which I have carried in my car ever since. Who knows that someone at some point in time were to find the missing paperwork and have me picked up all over again, even after I got the traffic ticket taken care of.