'Tinted Windows' man cost Roxbury $33K

ROXBURY – The township's bill for the man who successfully fought a ticket for having tinted windows keeps rising.

Jesse Wolosky's attorney recently received a $21,500 check for attorney fees spent fighting an Open Public Record Act lawsuit against Roxbury. On top of that, public records show the township spent nearly $11,500 in legal fees fighting Wolosky.

Wolosky learned about the township's legal fees when he filed another Open Public Records Act request, this time for Roxbury attorney Anthony M. Bucco's invoices to the township dating back to August 2014.

The records show Bucco invoiced Roxbury $11,438.50 between August 2014 and February 2015 for time spent dealing with the Wolosky v. Township of Roxbury court case.

"They paid that money to lose this case," Wolosky said. "I just want them to know how much their tinted windows have cost them."

Those invoices range from $3,567 in August 2014 for work on the Wolosky v. Township of Roxbury court case to a $3.75 parking garage charge for the attorney to park during a court appearance in October 2014.

In all, Wolosky has cost the town $32,938.50 since he was pulled over in April 2014, plus $54 counting the ticket he successfully fought.

SEE ALSO: $21.5K to man who fought tinted window ticket in Roxbury

The records show additional money being invoiced for assisting the town with OPRA requests, though it could not be determined how many of those were Wolosky's requests.

Wolosky began to request information from Roxbury under OPRA after he was pulled over by township police and issued a ticket for tinted windows in April 2014.

Roxbury Records Custodian Amy Rhead is the one tasked with compiling Wolosky's OPRA requests.

Rhead said she knows Wolosky is within his rights to request all the information he asks for, but no matter what she prepares for him, it's never enough.

"He asked for 106 pages of everyone's payroll, every ticket dating back to 2010 front and back, and more. I'm redacting driver's license numbers but there's still a lot of information on them," Rhead said. "It's not for me to say what he needs this for, but he's getting a lot of information on a lot of people."

SEE ALSO: Roxbury Police Chief: Officers won't stop ticketing tinted windows

Rhead estimates she's given Wolosky thousands of pages of documents over the past year.

"Honestly, (OPRA is) all consuming," Rhead said. "We're putting money in the budget for someone to help next year, because right now it's an unfunded mandate by the state."

Wolosky said he plans to continue to "police Roxbury with OPRA" until officers stop issuing tickets for tinted windows.

"If they're going to generate money from those tickets," Wolosky said, "I'm going to take that money away."

SEE ALSO: Man fights city hall in Roxbury and wins

Rhead said it's not the township costing residents, but rather Wolosky.

"He's costing the taxpayers money," Rhead said. "Anyone would look at what we've complied with and see that. And it's not just the clerk, this has taken time away from everyone here."

Wolosky still requests weekly copies of all tickets issued under statues 39:3-74 and 39:3-75 for tinted windows, and said his records show several hundred tickets per year, with a $54 fine going to the township for each one.

Roxbury Police Chief James Simonetti declined to comment on the matter.

Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; mizzo@dailyrecord.com