City Collections Firm Hounds Granny For 12-year-old Traffic Ticket

By Chad Garrison on Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:17 am

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I've written a couple times (here and here) about the city's contract with a San Antonio law firm to collect on unpaid red-light-camera tickets.

Well, apparently the contract includes all unpaid traffic tickets -- even those going back as far as the 1980s.

Yesterday KSDK Channel 5 ran an amusing story about a Webster Groves grandma who recently received a letter from the law firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson. The notice demanded that the woman pay $155 for a ticket she allegedly recieved in 1997 for the crime of "passing another vehicle on the right." The notice also informed that the city has recently issued a warrant for the woman's arrest.

The granny in question, Patricia Wilhelm, says she doesn't remember receiving the ticket 12 years ago. The city is using the law firm to collect on $18 million in unpaid bills and fines and says that there is no statute of limitations on traffic tickets.