Failure to Appear Fine

[Joseph Marnix]

Quit procrastinating and show up in court.
You want to be treated like an adult, so you must face the consequences of your own actions.
Maybe the judge would be lenient and give you a small slap on the hands.
Or maybe a bit tougher and give you some verbal lashing.
I doubt jail time though if you show up in court.

[HarryKerry]

Dude, you do NOT want to spend even 10 seconds in the LA County Jail. You have no idea what awaits you in there.

Most likely: if the judge sees this is your FIRST (and ONLY) offense of fare evasion, he/she will be merciful, along with your contrite explanation in your best clothes and pretty, innocent, boy appearance, that you really forgot about it and when it popped up you made every effort to make it right. The fact that you are there ON YOUR OWN, will count for you. I really do think you will probably get a quick lecture and a very reduced fine. It is the "fare beaters" more than ONCE caught without proper proof of fare, that the MTA and courts really despise, and they get the big fines. They expect to NEVER see you in their court again, and hope you've learned your lesson.

Before the economic downturn, I friend of mine got caught without proof of fare, but he really did buy a ticket but lost it. I know because I was with him and told him to put the ticket in his pocket or he was gonna lose it. Yeah, yeah, he said. Well he lost it and the LAPD (they were doing security then) gave him a citation. Only he took care of it right away. He had to go down the first time and wait and be told the next step was to return on a specific day for his court hearing. Later, when he arrived for the court hearing, he waited from the early morning until about lunch time when the City Attorney (one of the deputy prosecutors) met with him outside the courtroom and asked him what happened, saw it was a first offense and saw the kid was NOT your typical "fare beater" sort of fellow. The prosecutor said, "Fine. I'm not going to press charges. You can go home." That was then. What is it now?