More than 50 New York City taxi drivers were being arrested Wednesday morning on charges of ripping off riders, law enforcement officials said.
The arrests come weeks after Taxi and Limousine Commission officials said many drivers had been charging higher out-of-town rates on their meters for rides within city limits.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance and Department of Investigations commissioner Rose Gill Hearn are expected to announce details of the charges at a news conference at 1 p.m.
Indicted Defendants
The drivers are expected to have court appearances at the criminal court house Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
The Taxi and Limousine commission has said that hundreds of cabbies have been hiking fares on unaware passengers.
Last month, city judges ruled in the first wave of cases, as six of the worst offenders were slapped with $850 fines and had their licenses revoked.
The drivers were found to have been charging double-fare suburban rates while ferrying passengers within the city. The worst of the schemers was cabbie Michael John, who pulled the scam a whopping 570 times between 2008 and 2010.
Earlier this year, the TLC said that more than 600 drivers could lose their licenses due to the dirty double-fare trick.
Did you get the list of trips and dates in the mail or you had to go to the TLC to get them. You should have also requested GPS documentation, where the trip started to where the trip ended. Did you get all that, plus the amounts overcharged? If you are sure you have garage trips showing it. You said you are sure the details will not show any mileage except if something happed like a bump. Does that mean you did not GET DETAILS OF THE MILEAGE? You must receive these details BEFORE ANY HEARING ,and they should have come to you with the dates & trips;, whether you got them in the mail or picked them up. You should not go to any hearing where you don’t know the complete agenda, or it might be on the agenda to hang you!!! It is not part of our justice system in the USA for you to show up with your trip tickets and your answers to what you have been given, only to GET SOME NEW CHARGE AT THE HEARING where you are NOT PREPARED TO EXPLAIN IT. You are entitled to have a certain amount of time to study new information, new allegaltions and to get assistance when you prepare you answer. Like the garage secretary has helped you, you may get other assistance from other drivers similarly charged by the TLC. You should not have any fear of being stamped into the dirt by the hearing kangaroo!!
Bring a couple native-English-speaking friends with you to ANY hearing or court process. These are witnesses to the process and what happens to you during that process [hearing or trial] — not material witnesses to the “allegations.” If you show up alone [or with lawyer] you become the chump because they know it will be impossible for you to point out [on the spot] every wrong prosecution step to your lawyer. The idea of having your friends with you is the prosecution will realize you have two friends to witness any tricks the kangaroos try to pull and are MUCH LESS LIKELY to choose you as the CHUMP to victimize. It is not that your friends will stand up and say STOP. Ha ha ha If you have a friend who works at a fleet rental garage you might bring that friend — that way he can pass around to cabbies in general what happens and what happened at a hearing.
Those lawyers defending the 50 arrested cabbies might like to pay attention to Dershowitz cabbie and F. Lee — and ask whether the DDS system also contributed statistics to the ” sting. ” It wouldn’t be just for only half the NYC fleet to be surveilled. For example, if the stings only came from the Verifone system, or the CMT system, or the DDS system. Additionally, the US Dept of Commerc3e, National Conference of Weights & Measures standards that by law bear upon NY and do not allow any customer to input information to a meter. Another defense the proprietary and company private information of small and large businesses, where each driver, cab owner is a self-employed small business, and a credit card processor has a right only to credit debit fare information, but no right to cash fare information. How many accusations listed cash fare information by the card processors, info to which they had no right to keep, use, or reveal. If only one card processor provided all the sting information, that is a big legal problem too. Good luck.
To Brooklyn Mark. Where did the 52 comments go pertaining to this article, “Over 50 NYC Taxi Drivers Arrested?” A lot of valuable information was contributed by cab drivers that may help some innocent cabbies trying to prove their innocence. It says 52 comments or add one below, cannot seem to access the 52 comments I know were there. Also, the article ” Taxi Truth ” shows receipt slips printed that show computer meter error. Hope cabbies undergoing hearings direct their lawyers to this article so they can see the faulty receipt! And by the way, do you have any follow-up information as to what happened to cabbies who have already had their ” court process ” were any found innocent? Were any charges dismissed? What is going on?
I’m worried about false charges against Driver #3, Norman Feiner, Age 65. $4288 dollars overcharged on 4348 trips. Think of the 4348 trips as blocks laid out in a row. The average overcharge was 99 cents. Pretend you are putting 99 cents on each of those 4348 trip blocks in a row. Now, what is the MINIMUM overcharge that can be made by just punching the button? One comment said without moving and just punching the button 80 cents would go on the meter. If you posited that the overcharges were NOT AVERAGE 99 cents, then you would have to take away an amount of money from one block and place it on another. Suppose you took 10 block’s money out ($9.99) and put it on another block ($9.99 plus the blocks’s own 99 cents) – then you could not have the number of trips as 4348, but less trips as 4338. There is something very wrong with the numbers because Mr. Feiner’s average trip overcharge at 99 cents each is much to low to say he was doubling the fares. Perhaps another mathematician can explain it better, and certainly Mr. Feiner’s lawyer should obtain the services of a mathematics professor.
Judge Schedules Court Hearing in Cabbies’ Case >>> http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/judge-blocks-hearings-against-cabbies-accused-of-overcharging/?scp=8&sq=Taxi&st=cse
Daniel L. Ackerman , the lawyer for the 7 drivers who have apparently filed a lawsuit and are getting a hearing shortly as to their assertions. Attorney Ackerman should investigation the National Conference of Weights and Measures which sets standards for weights and measures under the US Department of Congress. Representatives to the Conference are sent from every State to approve or update the current standards. Individual states, instead of creating their own rules about weights & measures, adopt by law the standards of the National Conference of Weights & Measures. New York is one state that does. This makes the GPS & credit card advertising systems being used illegal — because the National Conference does not allow any customer or anyone else to INPUT SOMETHING TO THE METER (like a tip). Thus the system is illegal in New York. Attorney Ackerman should also look into whether the three system suppliers all surveyed their systems. For example, did DDS turn up some names of drivers alleged to have overcharged on rate 4? And did each Verifone and CMT also supply the names of drivers doing the same thing? If only one did, or only 2 did, then the surveillance would have been very lopsided.
THANK YOU, whoever provided the hearings update internet link with respect to the ongoing “criminal charges” against cabbies for alleged overcharging using rate 4 while in the city limits. It was very informative. Keep up the good work.
what happens if the cops catch someone driving a yellow cab without a hack license? what are the consequences? what is to expect? anyone knows?
James, the average NYPD cop will not even ask for your hack license if they stop you. Even if they did they do not have direct access to TLC records to check if it is valid etc… But in the event that you are caught by a TLC officer or by special trained NYPD team called “HACK SQUAD”. They will arrest you and you will see a judge in the morning who will hit you with a ticket for unlicensed driving ($140).