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LEBANON, Va. — A man used 300,000 pennies to pay taxes on two cars at a DMV office in Lebanon, Virginia on Wednesday, the Bristol Herald Courier reported.

Nick Stafford, of Cedar Bluff, Virginia, told the paper he wheeled the pennies into the office to prove a point and get back at state government.

He claimed he was given the runaround and forced to sue the state after he was denied direct phone numbers to DMV offices in his area following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“If they were going to inconvenience me then I was going to inconvenience them,” he told the newspaper. “I think the backbone to our republic and our democracy is open government and transparency in government and it shocks me that a lot of people don’t know the power of FOIA.”

Stafford told the Bristol Herald Courier he hired 11 people and spent hours unrolling pennies and putting the change into wheelbarrows.

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