Man jailed 10 years after US$2 taxi fare dispute because court made devastating typo - Printable Version

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Man jailed 10 years after US$2 taxi fare dispute because court made devastating typo - Levin - 10-09-2022

Gustaf Kilander
Fri, 9 September 2022 at 10:54 pm


A tourist was jailed in a $2 taxi fair dispute after a court made a typo turning a misdemeanour into a felony.

Angus McCoubrey and a friend were in Brookline in the Boston metropolitan area in April 2013 when they got out of a taxi because they thought the driver was taking a circuitous way to increase the fare.

They exited the vehicle and left $5 on the front seat, which was $2 less than the price, according to The Boston Globe.

The driver reported the incident to a nearby police officer, who brought a charge of taxi fare evasion against Mr McCoubrey three months later.

The then 28-year-old Mr McCoubrey had left the area for New York at that point. He hadn’t supplied a forwarding address.

The charge over the $2 dispute came to a head nine years later, when the now 37-year-old was arrested in his swim trunks, flip flops, and a t-shirt after he was caught up in a minor vehicle collision in a beach parking lot on Martha’s Vineyard. He was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car.

He was arrested for ignoring a felony charge of tax evasion in Brookline District Court. Someone at the court appeared to have made a typo while writing up charging documents and “taxi fare evasion” had become “tax evasion”. The misdemeanour had become a felony.


Much more at: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/tourist-jailed-nearly-ten-years-145414266.html

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