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In June of 2017 I received a speeding ticket in New York state while traveling for work. I never received a court date. I followed up numerus times over the following year and was always told I'm good and I'd receive something in the mail for my court date. I finally stopped following up and ultimately forgot about it.
Today I received a weird letter from the town of Bedford saying something about Covid and minimizing in person contact and that they're letting me plead guilty to a littering charge rather than the speeding ticket.
There's no way to make a payment online or anything, no phone number to call. This is just asking that I mail in my plea. If I accept it's a $350 fine and $93 NYS surcharge. I'm honestly fine with paying it but this whole thing sounds off and I'll be calling court tomorrow.
The content of the letter isn't strange. Some towns have been doing traffic court via mail. I had the same thing happen with Yorktown over the summer. They sent me a reduced violation (parking on pavement or whatever), I mailed it back to them saying that I accept, then they sent me a bill with instructions to either mail a check or pay online.
5 years is a bit ridiculous though. I had one that took 2 years and even that seemed odd.
Speeding ticket letter received nearly 5 years later???
Uh...doesn't the US constitution guarantee a speedy trial? Is there a statute of limitations that applies? Look into it. You may be off the hook.
Statute of limitations was satisfied when the charge was filed. Constitutional speedy trial may have been violated, although tolling by executive order helps the prosecution with this.
In general, nothing bizarre happened here. You received a plea offer. You either accept it or you don't. If you don't, then be prepared to attend court for trial or further proceedings.
But all in all, receiving a written plea offer in the mail on such a matter is very normal for a NYS Town or Village court.
I went online and got the court number. Sure enough this is something they're doing right now. Obviously looking for ways to generate money. This is actually a win for me. I don't have to worry about points, didn't have to worry about it for 5 years, and I'm getting a plea down without having to go to court or hire a lawyer. Nobody likes having to lay out $400 suddenly but given all other options this was really the best outcome I could have hoped for on this.
I went online and got the court number. Sure enough this is something they're doing right now. Obviously looking for ways to generate money. This is actually a win for me. I don't have to worry about points, didn't have to worry about it for 5 years, and I'm getting a plea down without having to go to court or hire a lawyer. Nobody likes having to lay out $400 suddenly but given all other options this was really the best outcome I could have hoped for on this.
Better to pay a 1 time flat rate than to have points on license and insurance goes up for X number of years. Insurance will go up anyway regardless, but why add to it. Definitely a win in your favor. And you don't have to go to court as you said.
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