{"id":293323,"date":"2026-07-11T18:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T18:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/293323\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T18:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T18:32:18","slug":"post-reporter-wins-in-traffic-court-beats-bogus-nypd-tickets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/293323\/","title":{"rendered":"Post reporter wins in traffic court, beats bogus NYPD tickets"},"content":{"rendered":"

These Brooklyn cops made the mistake of pulling over and handing out bogus traffic tickets to the wrong reporter.<\/p>\n

My driving drama began April 12, a bright Sunday afternoon, during a trip to the gym for a quick workout. I was rudely interrupted at Fourth Avenue and 86th\u00a0Street in Bay Ridge by about a half-dozen young NYPD officers who said they pulled me over for a \u201crandom traffic-safety check.\u201d<\/p>\n

After making me wait 20 minutes, a female officer shlepped out of a police car and slapped me with two summonses. They were for having \u201cillegal\u201d dealership frames on the front and rear license plates of my 2019 Infiniti.<\/p>\n

New York Post reporter Rich Calder was slammed with two traffic tickets in April for obstructed license plates \u2014 even though the only thing covering the plates were standard dealership frames (License plates blurred in photo for privacy). Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

I was shocked. I actually laughed, and told her she must be misinterpreting the law. <\/p>\n

I said I might not be a lawyer, but as a New York Post reporter, I am very familiar with new laws <\/a>prohibiting drivers from using ghost plates, clear plastic coverings and other methods to block plates from being read by red light, speeding and toll cameras.<\/p>\n

But not dealer frames, which do not obstruct the plates, and are probably on about half of all NYC vehicles. On the block where I was pulled over, there were a dozen cars with dealer frames, I pointed out.<\/p>\n

Then I asked her \u2014 and a crew of other fresh-faced cops who began surrounding me like ticket-quota vultures \u2014 what made my situation any different.<\/p>\n

The officers got hissy, said they weren\u2019t going to debate, and one male cop threatened to give me another ticket if I didn\u2019t just drive away.<\/p>\n

So I did \u2013 straight to the 68th\u00a0Precinct stationhouse a mile away.<\/p>\n

NYPD Officer Tiffany Ruiz\u2019s case bombed in the traffic hearing. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

I showed the ranking officer on duty both summonses \u2013 which were so sloppily scrawled that I could not make out the actual charges or potential fines.<\/p>\n

He walked outside to check my license plates and admitted the tickets should never have been written.<\/p>\n

He assured me the officers would be \u201cretrained\u201d because the law allows plate covers \u2014 provided, like mine, they don\u2019t block numbers and letters on the plate.<\/p>\n

He apologized but said he didn\u2019t have the power to toss the tickets \u2014 which were about to cost me more than $300 in fines and surcharges.<\/p>\n

New York Post reporter Rich Calder holds up documents showing he beat two traffic violations for \u201cdirty or covered\u201d license plates. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

On Friday, I finally had my day in court \u2013 a small hearing room at the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Coney Island before an associate administrative law judge.<\/p>\n

I was still angry about these petty and unfair tickets \u2014 and was ready to channel my inner Harvey Specter, the fictional lawyer from \u201cSuits.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was up late the night before, vigilantly rehearsing what would be a spirited defense, complete with evidentiary photos and statutory citations. <\/p>\n

But I barely got a word in edgewise.<\/p>\n

Associate Administrative Law Judge Perry Bohmstein. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The officer, Tiffany Ruiz, showed up in uniform wearing sunglasses, but removed them shortly before the two of us were called up to address Judge Perry Bohmstein.<\/p>\n

Ruiz, an NYPD cop since 2024 who records show pocketed $77,228 with overtime last year, went first and flat-out lied \u2014 or had a memory fart.<\/p>\n

She claimed my plates were \u201cdirty and covered by plastic\u201d \u2013 never mentioning our debate over the legality of dealership frames.<\/p>\n

While the plates\u2019 cleanliness was open to interpretation, the idea that I ever had transparent plastic plate covers \u2013 like the ones many of her fellow cops have infamously used on their private cars<\/a> for years to avoid camera tickets \u2013 was not true.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rich Calder won his case, saving himself more than $300 in traffic fines and state surcharges. (License plates blurred in photo for privacy). Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

I was ready to pounce.<\/p>\n

But Bohmstein stopped the officer in the middle of her testimony \u2014 dismissing both tickets on the spot.<\/p>\n

I was thrilled \u2014 yet sad. I blurted out that I had a whole case prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get to make the speech now!\u201d the cranky, but obviously fair, judge barked, before warning me to leave immediately before he changed his mind.<\/p>\n

So I did, but nobody was going to stop me from confronting Ruiz outside the trial room.<\/p>\n

The state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Coney Island. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

I asked her why she lied about me having a plastic cover on my plates.<\/p>\n

I also asked if she was ever retrained on what constitutes an obstructed plate, as her superior promised.<\/p>\n

But she would not comment. <\/p>\n

So I left, but not before advising her to pick up the Sunday Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These Brooklyn cops made the mistake of pulling over and handing out bogus traffic tickets to the wrong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7727,119,31287,4234,9340,38806,57,9,4330,56,63,65,64,103,40615,104,30334,16732,2023,58],"class_list":["post-293323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bay-ridge","tag-coney-island","tag-dmv","tag-judges","tag-lawyers","tag-license-plates","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-post","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-plastic","tag-police","tag-suits","tag-summons","tag-traffic","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}