Eight Busted In Parking Fraud Scheme As Official Placard Abuse Rolls Right Along

A "temporary parking permit" created by a retired police officer

Eight people were arrested on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in a forged parking placard scam.

According to the city's Department of Investigation, the eight alleged scofflaws used phony placards to pose as city officials, or others with special parking privileges, in an effort to get parking tickets dismissed. Those fraudulent cards were made to appear as though they were issued by the Post Office, the New York Blood Center, and the City Law Department. Four of the individuals are also said to have used fake DOT-issued handicap placards.

The scheme largely failed, as seven of the defendants eventually paid their summonses in full. The exception was Elliot Obeng-Dompreh, a 33-year-old resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey, whose No Standing violation was wrongly dismissed after he submitted a fake handicap placard, officials said.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has charged all eight individuals with offering a false instrument for filing, a Class E felony that carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

“Parking comes at a premium in a city like New York and using fraudulent placards to circumvent the rules is a crime," DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett said in a statement. "DOI is proud to partner with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on cracking down on fraudulent placards and thanks DOT for referring these cases for investigation and their on-going assistance in this proactive matter."

The rampant misuse of parking placards has been the subject of promised crackdowns for years now. But the abuse is most commonly associated with local officials—including cops and DOT employees—who use their city-issued credentials to park illegally. Indeed, as one indefatigable Twitter account points out, the police officers escorting the defendants on their perp walk today belong to a precinct known to create its own illicit placards.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has overseen a significant hike in the number of municipal placards, recently unveiled a new campaign to combat placard abuse, based on a "three strikes" policy for any officials found misusing their placards. Elsewhere in City Hall, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson is co-sponsoring a slate of bills aimed at ramping up enforcement of placard corruption.

A spokesperson for the Mayor's Office did not immediately respond to inquiries about how many placards have been revoked under his new crackdown, and whether de Blasio supports the Speaker's legislation.

In an emailed statement, Johnson told Gothamist, “Placard abuse continues to be a huge problem in our city and cracking down on this issue once and for all is a priority for this Council. We have introduced and held hearings on a package of bills that would address placard abuse in a comprehensive way and we continue to work on moving those bills forward as they go through the legislative process."