Help I can not afford to loose my security clearance!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[godchoc]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? VA


I recently got in trouble for not having legal registration stickers my vehicle. The issue is in the state of Virginia, you need to pass an emission inspection in order to fully register your vehicles. There are no exceptions allowing your vehicle waived emissions unless you spend over a certain amount in repairs. Basically my issue is I have been going from shop to shop for months trying to service and fix the vehicle for proper registration. I have receipts for every place I went, all while receiving police tickets for expired registration. I paid all my fines and fees, but the problem with my vehicle was remotely unsolvable. No one seemed to be able to diagnose the problem. At the time I was dating a guy that opted to help me resolve my registration issue. He explained to me that he knew a few mechanics that would help me. I gave him all the necessary information to help, one day I came home from work and I had stickers in which he basically he claimed he knew someone that could help resolve it. I was so desperate and out of money from non-working repairs and traffic tickets…to have stickers I never looked into it…. Basically my issue is the police found out they were not legally my stickers. I never stole them from another car, they guy I was dating explained to me that he went into the DMV, told them he lost his stickers and they gave him another set. He then used those stickers placed them on my vehicle to use until I could come up with more money to fix the car. Now everyone says the simple solution after investing so much money would be to get another car. I tried that, and no dealer was willing to give me much for the car. Fact is I am still financing the car, in which I already could not afford to keep it. Getting another car would be more of a financial struggle. In VA this is classified as a class 1 misdemeanor, on the same level as assault wreck less driving and serving alcohol to a minor…I am willing to pay fines, I have all my documented repairs where I was ripped off from mechanics and proof of all the tickets that were paid. I am more concerned about jail time. I can not afford to go to jail, or I will loose my job. I have a security clearance which was actually granted during the time of my trying to fix my car, and if I lose it, I can face not being hired anywhere else. My future based on this issue, and even though it is not a major offense, I can still technically go to jail. I had the car inspected and paid a large amount of money to have it fixed, and the car is properly registered now. I just want to know what my options are. What can I bring to court to help me just get a fine, and a traffic class course?

 

[Shay-Pari'e]

You committed fraud. I can't think of anything for you to bring to court, other than a lawyer.

Bringing repair receipts while operating your vehicle is not going to look good.

 

[HomeGuru]

You committed fraud. I can't think of anything for you to bring to court, other than a layer.

Bringing repair receipts while operating your vehicle is not going to look good.

**A: me thinks a layer won't be good in court.

 

[seniorjudge]

**A: me thinks a layer won't be good in court.

I disagree.

Depends on who gets laid.

 

[TheGeekess]

**A: me thinks a layer won't be good in court.

I don't know... judges like fresh eggs.

 

[Shay-Pari'e]

**A: me thinks a layer won't be good in court.

Hey! The court room may be cold.

 

[ytie94do]

Thank you for convincing me to never move to Virginia. Don't they also have really retarded laws about booze and drinking?

Anyway, why don't you just get a used vehicle? This piece of junk is apparently costing you thousands of dollars for some mystery problem that no one seems willing to fix. What do the repair shops say is the problem? If you must keep this junker, get a man to take the thing in and have it looked at (your husband/boyfriend/dad/coworker/a bum off the street you pay/whomever). Shops are much less likely to pull this crap with a man. Or have said man look at it himself. Cars are not magical mystery boxes with strange mystical ailments. You need a concrete answer as to what's wrong with this thing, spelled out so you can understand it and get to fixing it.

Here Virginia DEQ - Air Check Virginia - Vehicle Emissions Inspection Failure/Waiver is information on what to do if you want to apply for a waiver. You need to spend $695 at an approved facility, AND the work must be done by an approved technician at that facility. If you've done that, you're probably eligible for a waiver. Take your paperwork to the DMV. There's a list of approved sites and what to do about various types of failures on that page.

I'd get a used vehicle from craigslist or cars.com or something. Anything is better than constantly having to pay for tickets.

You probably won't have to go to jail. States need people like you to pay fines to keep the system running.

 

[FlyingRon]

It's not the emissions problems he's running afoul of (which by the way isn't a Commonwealth issue, it's a federal mandate pushed down on certain of the urban counties in the state), it's the fraud he was a party to with regard to the vehicle registration stickers. Auto repair shops don't get you stickers. They just enable your record at the DMV so you can obtain them yourself (in person, online, or by mail). The whole scenario smelled fishy from the start and the OP should have suspected things.

So yes, he needs a lawYer both to try to beat the original charge and he may need one to defend his security clearance (there are those in the northern virginia area that specialize in that). A traffic violation (even one severe enough to cause jail time, as one of my cleared employees found out) doesn't seem to bother the investigators at all. However, fraud might.