That's the Ticket! Crooked Trooper Busted in Fake Citation Scheme
Miami-based trooper wrote hundreds of phantom tickets
By BRIAN HAMACHER
Updated 10:54 AM EDT, Wed, Feb 3, 2010
A ticket-happy Miami-based state trooper was busted yesterday after police said he wrote hundreds of phony tickets to drivers who had done nothing wrong.
Paul Lawrence, a veteran FHP member based in Miami-Dade, was charged with 22 counts of official misconduct yesterday, according to prosecutors.
Lawrence, 38, spent the past few months writing up traffic violators who in many cases weren't driving their cars or even in the country at time they supposedly broke the law.
The crooked cop had been using information from drivers he had pulled over in the past.
Though he's been a trooper for 15 years, cops said Lawrence didn't start manufacturing the fake tickets until November, when he wrote up nearly 400 citations. But 82 of them were missing signatures, and when his bosses started getting calls from drivers claiming they were getting tickets they didn't know anything about, the jig was up.
In all, 203 citations Lawrence issued since November have been dismissed, and there could be more.
"We all know that honesty and integrity are the central values of every effective police agency," said Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle in a written statement. "When an officer lies, he damages the reputation of his department and every one of his fellow officers. In Mr. Lawrence's case, he has also committed a crime. Now we all must work to undo the damage Mr. Lawrence created
It's unclear why Lawrence began the scheme, since the FHP doesn't have quotas. Prosecutors said he did it to boost his numbers for his bosses.
Whatever the reason, Lawrence is facing the third-degree felony charges, and has been placed on administrative duty and will likely be fired.
First Published: Feb 3, 2010 8:09 AM EDT
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