After racking up the city’s highest-ever parking ticket tab, Jennifer Fitzgerald will only have to pay a small fraction of what she owed the city of Chicago.

In her lawsuit that was dismissed Aug. 12, Fitzgerald said Brandon Preveau, her former boyfriend, left a purple 1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo car registered in her name in an employee O’Hare International Airport parking lot for three years. During that time, the car was ticketed continuously and, when Fitzgerald didn’t show up to court, the fines increased exponentially, city law department spokesman Roderick Drew said.

Under agreements reached recently by Fitzgerald, Preveau and the city, Fitzgerald will pay just less than $4,500 of the nearly $106,000 that she owed and Preveau will pay her the amount of the down payment, which is about $1,600. Fitzgerald will pay the rest off over the next three years, with monthly payments of $78.

The lawsuit stated that Preveau bought the car from Fitzgerald’s uncle, who signed the title of the car over to Fitzgerald. Preveau worked at O’Hare and drove the car to work regularly, according to the suit. On Nov. 17, 2009, it said, the car was ticketed for the first time for being an abandoned vehicle, but wasn’t removed until the city towed it in October 2012, nearly three years later.

Fitzgerald said in April that she had been unable to access the car because it was in an employee lot. She also said she had given her spare set of keys to Preveau when he lost his.

Tickets went beyond the car being abandoned in the lot. Fitzgerald was also ticketed multiple times for improperly tinted windows, not having the proper city sticker, expired plates or registration, cracked or missing windows and broken lamps, according to the lawsuit.

In all, 678 tickets were placed on the car without it ever being towed, according to the complaint.

While the vehicle in the O’Hare lot accrued more than $100,000 in parking tickets, Fitzgerald also had several thousand dollars of parking violations on another vehicle that was in her name, Drew said.

Drew said the city had made efforts to settle the tab before it went to court, for about the same $4,500 amount, but Fitzgerald declined.

“Parties came together and worked out a reasonable resolution to this situation,” Drew said. “By following the terms of the settlement, at the end of this three year period Ms. Fitzgerald will be able to resolve the debts, receive her driver’s license — which she could not have with all of these tickets hanging over her head — and she can move on with her life.”

ehirst@tribune.com

@ellenjeanhirst



