I was pulled over randomly while driving my car in New York City, I couldn’t get insurance at the time so my vehicle was unregistered and uninsured, on top of that I got a posession of stolen property charge because police said the plates were marked stolen. I know for a fact that the plates were in fact NOT stolen since I obtained them from a friend of mine who had them registered in his name prior to me and he knowingly let me use them. I think because he didn’t return them to DMV and I got a ticket on that plate once, the dmv automatically marked them as stolen in their system. I was just wondering what to expect, I have a clean record and license. Can I face jail time? Will there be lots of fines? I contacted a lawyer already but I just want to get some outside opinions first.
Plates are issued for a specific vehicle to a specific person. You can’t just put someone else’s plates on your car and call it good. There’s a good chance that rather than being pulled over randomly, the officer checked the number and saw that the plates were issued for a different car. I wouldn’t think there’d be jail time involved (unless New York considers using the wrong tags on an unregistered vehicle a crime). But I do expect the fines to be steep and a good chance for a suspension of your license.
Reported for forum change.
I am not a lawyer, but YOU definitely need one very bad right now
You have multiple offenses there
violation of financial responsibility
driving an unregistered vehicle
fictitious registration
and the stolen plates
maybe some other stuff the lawyer guys know about.
yea stolen, cause here is how i see that going down.
Your friend is not going to take any heat for you and is not going to rick jail for you, so he is going to continue to let the DMV list the plates as stolen, which is probably what he told the DMV when they asked him to return the unregistered plates.
So your so called buddy is probably going to drop that noose around your neck rather than his.
I would recommend you go talk to your lawyer, cause the way i see it, you are screwed pretty good.
I know for a fact that there can be jail time because there are plenty people in jail now for your violations.
You may have a clean record, but what you did and how you did it shows premeditation
kind of thinking that wont be lost on the judge either?
As far as fines go, i am thinking that buying insurance would have been cheaper.
Why didnt you just take the bus, walk, take a taxi, an uber, etc?
You had to do this in New York??
Moderator Action
Welcome to the SDMB, Oortcloud.
Questions seeking opinions, especially on legal matters, belong in our In My Humble Opinion forum. I will move this thread there for you.
Moving thread from GQ to IMHO.
It is a crime in most states that i know of.
And as you said plated belong to NY, they are loaned to a specific person for a specific vehicle.
If they turn up on another vehicle with a different person, NY says
“Yo Mikey! What gives?
We loaned you these plates in good faith, you want we should bash your head in?
What you mean loaning them out to someone else?”
So Mikey says
“No No, its not like that, they were stolen from me, i was just going to call you about it.”
Cause Mikey does not want his ass in a sling.
Guess who gets the sling instead?
His name isn’t Mickey, it’s Rick.
Cite:
The charges are as follows: Posession of stolen property (specific: PL 165.40), operating a vehicle with no insurance, operating a vehicle with no registration. I didn’t present them with fictitious registration so I don’t think that would be on there.
My biggest worry is jail time as well as criminal record. The lawyer said we’re going to plea bargain with the prosecution. But how likely is it that they will accept the deal? Can you give a rough estimate of the likelyhood of getting jail time and if so what is ballpark of the amount? The PL 165.40 misdemeanor says jailtime of up to a year, and driving with no insurace is with up to 15 days in jail in NY.
By the way the plate that I had on was from Delaware, so it wasn’t a NY issued plate.
And another question is if it’s going to help any if I get insurance now and register that car? Right now after all of this went down my insurance is about $950 a month, from the quote I got and from what I understand is that my licence will get suspended almost certainly for a year. So I’m bit reluctant to just dish out thousands of dollars if I won’t even be able to drive the car.
Roll call must be hell in that jail!
Roll call in Rick jail?
I’m pretty sure the other inmates are never gonna give you up.
Is it still rickrolling when the link tells you it’s going there?
I would recommend you sell the car,and don’t get another one until you can afford to keep it legal. Tell the judge that you have realized how irresponsible all this was, that you were just trying to get to school/keep your job/see your kid, and you did something desperate and stupid.
Ignore this advice if your lawyer says it’s bad. But definitely don’t keep a car you can’t afford.
Why are you driving uninsured, in an unregistered car?
A wild guess would be money, or lack thereof.
Didn’t your lawyer answer those questions for you? I’d trust his opinion and advice more than I would strangers on the internet.
My WAG is you won’t get jail time, if you don’t have a criminal record. I would think that the prosecution should be willing to deal, but you will have to pay some significant fines and will lose your drivers license for some time. But that’s a guess, and not even a knowledgeable one. Your lawyer should have better information for you.
Is that somehow an excuse?
Yes pretty much because of money, I got my license 2 years ago, and since I’m under 30 my insurance rates are very steep. As of right now after these charges, my rate is $950/month for my zipcode. Before that the cheapest I found was $450 with progressive, with GEICO it was $550. I bought this car for $600 and had driven it for 4 years now, so I would be paying the full price of the vehicle monthly had I opted to go that route. It was obviously irrisponsible however I needed it for work (I do furniture delivery privately) and over the years just kind of gotten at ease. I should have at least had it insured upstate under a different address, but even there it’s $200 a month for me.
Regarding my question though, what would be the likelyhood of getting a jail sentence and how long could it possibly be? It would also help to know the aggravating factors in case of stolen property charge, what determines the severity of that charge? The value of the item or something else? Also about the insurance, what causes someone to get 15 days in jail for that vs someone getting a day?
edit: @Orwell, well technically I didn’t really officially hire a lawyer, I’ve talked to about 5 firms now using their free consultations so I’m kind of going off of what they tell me in a few minutes of me describing what I just described here. Most of them say that they’ll try to lower the misdemeanors to violations, most say it’s unlikely I’ll get time, but to be honest I think most of these guys are completely incompetent just based on the conversations I had with them. That is why I think anyone who has any invovment in law or 've been in a similar situation and is not just trying to say what suits me to get a check is much more valuable as a source. (aka you guys)
No, it’s an explanation.
Never claimed it was an excuse. Just a reason.