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D.C. Nets $900,000 in Crackdown
On Unpaid Traffic Tickets
The District of Columbia claims to have collected more than $900,000 in unpaid traffic tickets in a recent police enforcement campaign.
The city estimates about $1 billion is owed by scofflaws, many of them from Virginia and Maryland.
“Too many drivers think they can speed recklessly through the District, putting the safety of Washingtonians and visitors at risk, with no financial consequences for their lawlessness,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement as he announced lawsuits against five motorists.
One of them, Charles V. Sanders Jr., allegedly owes $187,200 for 344 traffic infractions, including 316 citations for speeding. Sixty-one of them were for speeding more than 30 miles per hour over the speed limit.
The crackdown is being enabled by technology that reads the license plates of vehicles and simultaneously lists any fines the owners have not paid. It helps identify the “high-dollar scofflaws” who are the prime target.
The traffic enforcers travel in convoys of tow trucks with a lead car equipped with license plate-reading technology. Vehicles owing at least $2,000 in fines compel the convoy to stop long enough for one of the tow trucks to haul the scofflaw’s auto to an impound lot.
After the lot normally used for impounded vehicles filled to capacity, the city opened two more lots to handle the overflow. The owners have 28 days to pay their fines and get a clearance from police to reclaim their vehicles.
District of Columbia residents can be granted payment plans on their tickets to reclaim their vehicles. Out of state residents must pay the full amount due or their autos will be auctioned or scrapped.
More than half the vehicles towed have been from Virginia.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
FBI Reports Sharp Increase
In American Cybercrime Victims
The FBI’s new Internet Crime Report released last month shows Americans lost $16.6 billion to cybercrime in 2024 despite an intensified government effort to stop it.
The losses were up by one-third from a year earlier.
Residents of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia were cheated out of a total of $848 million through cybercrime, the report says.
Fraud was the most common crime, particularly among elderly persons. It accounted for 83 percent of the financial losses. Ransomware attacks also were up.
The report coincides with warnings from the FBI that U.S. infrastructure is vulnerable to foreign attacks from China, Russia and transnational criminal hackers.
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Universities Prepare to Battle Trump
Over What They Say Is “Coercion”
Faculty and student leaders from at least six universities met recently at the University of Minnesota to decide whether to pool their resources for a legal battle with President Donald Trump.
They are outraged over what they say are Trump’s efforts to control their curricula, admissions policies and research funding.
Their proposed “mutual academic defense compact” resolution would allow them to share attorneys and financial resources to oppose the president’s effort that he describes as reforms.
Presidents of the universities co-signed a letter joined by about 200 school administrators addressed to Trump. It denounces the Trump administration for demanding more oversight of their educational programs.
“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses,” says the letter.
Power the Civil Rights Work of Our Time
Each day members of our community are experiencing wage theft, the effects of gentrification, discriminatory policing, collateral consequences, marginalization in schools, and barriers to public accommodations.
We fight alongside people facing the effects of gentrification like Amira Moore. Our work empowers the people and communities who need it most, “We can do more than we think. There’s a path to equity, we just have to step to it.” –Ms. Moore
For more than 50 years, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee has been on the frontlines of the fight for civil rights in our community. We deploy the best legal talent, we tackle the tough cases, we fight, and we win.
Our work is as important today as it has ever been. Through your support, you can play a role in creating justice for thousands of marginalized members of our community. Together, we will dismantle injustice and pursue lasting change.
Join us! Donate & subscribe: https://www.washlaw.org/support-us
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Letters to the Editor
D.C. in Brief
Maryland Laws Give Prison Inmates
New Parole and Expungement Chances
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed bills recently that would make it easier for prison inmates to get parole and to expunge their criminal records after being released.
He described the bills as a justice reform effort intended to give criminal offenders a second chance at success.
“We know, that for too many Marylanders, their criminal record … is tied around their necks for life. They cannot get a loan, they cannot get a home, they cannot get hired and oftentimes it’s because of an offense that they committed years, if not decades ago,” Moore (D) said. “We have got to confront this myth that every sentence needs to be a life sentence.”
The reforms expand the list of more than 100 mostly nonviolent crimes that qualify for expungement. They also streamline the process to make it easier and faster.
Additional offenses that could be expunged are credit card theft, making a false statement to police and driving without a license.
Other reform provisions would grant parole to more inmates imprisoned with long sentences. In addition, age and illness would be given greater consideration on whether to parole prisoners.
The key bills Moore signed into law are the Second Look Act and the Expungement Reform Act.
The Second Look Act would allow persons incarcerated for at least 20 years to petition for a reduced sentence if they were younger than 25 years old when they were convicted, they were not sex offenders, not sentenced to life without chance of parole, and were not convicted of killing first responders.
Both bills were subjects of emotional testimony in the Maryland General Assembly that included crime victims discussing how they were terrorized by criminals.
Justice Dept. Policy Seeks to Make
Seizing Journalists’ Records Easier
The Justice Department is ramping up its confrontations against the media with a new policy that could make it easier for U.S. attorneys to seize reporters’ records and to compel their testimony.
In a related move, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is threatening to revoke the nonprofit status of Wikipedia.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent out a memo to Justice Department officials late last month that reverses a policy protecting reporters’ sources when they report information leaked from unnamed sources.
The policy was derived from First Amendment free speech and free press guarantees. It has been in effect with only small modifications since the Nixon administration.
Bondi’s memo said the old policy interferes with law enforcement when issues of public importance are investigated.
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We Could Use Your Help
Thousands of DC residents need a lawyer, but can’t afford one. They could be illegally evicted from their homes, lose custody of their children, experience domestic violence, and more, all because they lack legal representation.
You could make a difference. By making a donation to the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, you will provide free, high-quality, zealous legal representation to low-income DC residents.
Your support could prevent homelessness, domestic violence, hunger, or family separation. In fact, if just 10 people who see this ad give $28 to Legal Aid, it will be enough to staff an experienced attorney at the courthouse for a day.
That way, DC residents like Keith King (pictured above) can get the legal representation they need to win their cases. As Mr. King put it, if it wasn’t for his Legal Aid lawyer, “I would have been homeless again.”
Here is the link to the Legal Aid website for donations: https://www.legalaiddc.org/donate-to-legal-aid/
For more information, contact Rob Pergament at Legal Aid at rpergament@legalaiddc.org