Mar 8, 2011, 4:46am ET

Florida tolls illegally detain motorists for using large bills [Video]

After being illegally threatened and detained one too many times, a Floridian toll road-user has ousted an illegal operation being run by the Florida Turnpike authority.

A a Floridian man by the name of Joel Chandler that frequents Florida's Polk Parkway toll road stumbled upon what is turning out to quite possibly be the largest criminal conspiracy in the state's history.



What caused the potentially ground-breaking discovery? When attempting to pay a toll road fee with a $100 bill, Chandler was told that he must give the toll worker private identification information or he would not be allowed to leave. After experiencing the same scenario on several occasions, Chandler began his work in determining the legality of what was going on on Florida's toll roads, along with the help of WTSP 10 News.



Chandler first sent an e-mail to the Florida Department of Transportation and complained about the policy, to which he received a reply stating that there wasn't any policy in place concerning the detention. Chandler says his initial reaction was astonishment that there were apparent "rogue" toll workers detaining motorists, which motivated Chandler to continue his research with the help of a hidden camera.



As it turns out, the practice appeared to be at all toll booths, with some workers even threatening to call the Florida Highway Patrol if Chandler would not provide them with his personal information after paying with a bill $20 or larger. Chandler continued to complain and eventually received an e-mail reply from the assistant General Counsel of FDOT stating that there wasn't enough evidence to start an investigation into the incidents.



(More after video)





A later investigation would reveal that the same day Chandler received an e-mail stating there wasn't enough evidence to investigate, a series of e-mails had been sent amongst management and the legal department discussing the issue, even panicking and suggesting that the detention program should be temporarily suspended. Also uncovered were e-mails between FDOT officials asking who should be the one to call Chandler, and asking what they should tell him.



But it gets worse - much, much worse

As if the lying wasn't enough, it turns out that records indicate an astonishing 87 percent of all paperwork of suspected counterfeit money was filed for minority drivers, often citing them as "young Hispanic male," or "young African American male." The fact that the FDOT had enacted a policy that allowed for individual workers to determine who looked like they had counterfeit money or not based on personal opinion is also illegal, as it is prone to introduce personal bias.



It has also come to light that in the two years the program obtained just $16,000 in counterfeit money - which required $32,000 worth of forms to be printed out - out of $1,523,825,404 in tolls collected. Furthermore, Chandler says that despite FDOT claiming that the reason they collect personal information was to pass that along to law enforcement, there isn't a single case ever in which anything has been turned over to law enforcement.



Chandler says he is seeking to file a class action lawsuit against the state, and given that Chandler estimates roughly five million cases of people being illegally detained, the payout could end up costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars.





References

1.'Motorists illegally...' view



