Exclusive: Help may be on the way for Suffolk woman fined thousands for custom plates she surrendered 4 years ago
News 12 was the first to report about the four-year battle Beda Koorey, of Huntington, has faced as tickets keep coming in - tied to a Star Trek-themed custom license plate she surrendered in 2020.
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A Suffolk woman's fight to detach herself from constant tickets tied to a custom license plate she surrendered four years ago continues, as some help comes her way.
News 12 was the first to report about the four-year-long battle Beda Koorey, of Huntington, has faced as tickets keep coming in tied to a Star Trek themed custom license plate she surrendered in 2020.
News 12 was the first to report about the four-year battle Beda Koorey, of Huntington, has faced as tickets keep coming in tied to a Star Trek-themed custom license plate she surrendered in 2020.
Koorey surrendered her custom plates, NCC 1701, in April 2020 and has a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles confirming it.
Since then, traffic cameras have captured the plate on different vehicles across the country, including in Washington, Illinois, Virginia, at least nine other states nationwide - and Montreal, Canada.
The violations and citations have racked up over $17,000 in fines nationwide, and they keep coming in.
"Well, I got more tickets from Chicago," said Koorey. "I can't even sleep. All I see are tickets with cars with my plates on them. This is making me sick every single day."
News 12 reached out to some of the places where these tickets are coming from to find out why Koorey keeps getting them.
An official New York City source confirmed to News 12 that their records show Koorey is still tied to the plate.
The Virginia Beach Police Department told News 12 it uses state-specific DMV details to identify the registered owner.
News 12 also learned that vanity plates, identical to Koorey's old plates, are being sold on Amazon and used on vehicles nationwide.
It's not all bad news though for Koorey.
The New York City Department Of Finance (DOF) says it's working with Koorey to dispute the over $16,000 in violations connected to the phony plates.
In a statement to News 12, the DOF said, "DOF's Parking Summons Advocate has been working with Ms. Koorey to dispute the open violations, and we will continue to monitor the situation through our Automatic Dispute Program.
This newly launched program allows individuals to choose to have OPSA challenge suspicious violations on their behalf, relieving them from the burden of responding to violations from clearly fraudulent plates. We urge anyone who feels they have unfairly received a camera violation linked to a fraudulent license plate to reach out to the Office of the Parking Summons Advocate for help."
"I don't believe it'll be done any time soon. Hopefully, it will because I can't stand it anymore," she said.
The DMV tells News 12 its records continue to indicate that there is no discrepancy in their records.
In a statement to News 12, the DMV says, "DMV is committed to helping Ms. Koorey as much as possible. If law enforcement agencies or other billing authorities have specific information that they believe ties Ms. Koorey to this plate, we would very much like to see what they are seeing, so we may determine where the discrepancy lies. Our review of her record makes it clear that those plates were surrendered to the New York State DMV more than four years ago, and she was given a certified document to prove it. It is incumbent on these entities to make sure that they are conducting a full review of the record to prevent innocent people from receiving tickets they should not."
Koorey says she just hopes someone can figure out this issue.
"I'll just see and wait for the mailbox tomorrow to see what tickets are in there," she said.
News 12 also contacted Amazon about the vanity plates being sold and allegedly used on vehicles. A spokesperson says they're investigating the claims.
