Marin County Superior Court Engages in Fraud

I was travelling from my home in Nevada to Marin County, California in May, 2022. While in San Rafael I was the unfortunate recipient of a motor vehicle citation from a local police Officer, Sergeant Christopher Duncan, badge number 542, of the San Rafael Police Department. This is not the first time I have been the subject of a motor vehicle citation in California, but it was the first in San Rafael. It seems to be that police officers, in general, like to unreasonably cite drivers with out of state license plates, banking on the fact that the driver will not want to come back for a trial, even though the citation was issued on the flimsiest of circumstances. In this instance it was my opinion the alleged motor vehicle code infraction was a blatant overreach of the pertinent statute by the police officer who cited me. According to the instructions on the citation it stated, in part, in section 2: “If you contest the violation (select a. or b.) (Court Trial) Send a certified or registered letter postmarked no later than five days prior to the appearance date, or come into the court by the appearence date to request a court trial on a future date when an officer and any witnesses will be present. You will be required to submit the bail amount...” and, on the second page of the Courtesy Notice I received shortly after the incident in the mail it stated, in part: “PLEAD NOT GUILTY AND SCHEDULE A COURT DATE If you plan to plead not guilty, you may schedule a contested trial, where you and the police officer will present your evidence to the Court. You must schedule your court date by no later than the due date on this notice. Pursuant to VC §§ 40519(a) and (b), you must also pay your bail in full at the time you schedule your court date. If fount not guilty, or your case is dismissed at your court trial, your bail will be refunded to you.” I chose to contest the violation by pleading not guilty and selected a Court Trial and chose to appear at the counter at the Civic Center Traffic Division on June 21, 2022, where I paid the required bail amount of $237.00 in cash, in order to receive a ZOOM traffic court date of August 1, 2022. The bail payment was requred as noted in VC §§ 40519(a) and (b) as cited above. On August 1, 2022, I appeared via ZOOM for the trial and the case was dismissed by the magistrate. On August 2, 2022, I called the Traffic Division to ask when I was going to receive my $237.00 bail refund. They indicated that a check would be mailed to me by September 26, 2022. I called on or around September 28, 2022 and I was told that there was no record that I paid any bail amount and that, therefore, I would not receive a refund. It has now been about three and a half months that the Traffic Division of the Marin County Court has been holding my money. While the Traffic Division disavows having received the payment, and to make it perfectly clear, I am asserting that I tendered $237.00 in cash to the cashier at the Traffic Division Couner on June 21, 2022. I took the paperwork which was given to me that day which mentions the $237 bail amount as my receipt for the payment. I was offered no other paperwork and I assumed that this was the way it was done. I also relied on the fact that the instructions in section 2 a. of the Citation would have precluded me from having received a court date had I not tendered the bail amount in the first place. I also note that I relied on the assertion of VC §§ 40519 (a) and (b) in the Courtesy Notice, page 2, that I must “pay the bail at the time you schedule your court date” AND “If found not guilty, or your case is dismissed at your court trial, your bail will be refunded to you.” I have now sent a letter to the Supervisor of the Marin County Court, outlining the circumstances and formally asking for a refund. I have included the various tangible documents I received along the way during my process of dealing with their system. I have also included a ccpy of my bank statement which shows the withdrawal of the cash funds necessary to pay the bail on August 21, 2022. I am hopeful that when they complete their investigation, that they will conclude that what took place at the Traffic Division was an inadvertent error or oversight in the handling of my cash bail and lack of proper recording and receipt thereof by the clerk and not an overt act of material misrepresentation or fraud on the part of the Traffic Division or its employees. I have called both the San Rafael Police Department and the Marin County Sheriff's Department to report the fraud. Neither organization thinks that they have jursisiction over the matter and will not accept the reported fraud. I have spoken to the District Attorney and they also do not feel that they have jurisdiction over the matter. I am now going to report this matter to the Attorney General to see if they will investigate the fraud.

Shame on First Republic Bank

I bank at First Republic Bank. Today, my accountant called me about an item and I wanted to verify that the trasaction date and amount was right. I went online and attempted to look at a bank statement from a bit over a year ago. Try as I might I could not get to the statements as advertised on the website. Eventually I gave up and called the help desk. They told me what to do, but the funcitions that they mentioned didn't do what thay said they would do. Eventually they told me that they wanted to view my screen so that they could see what I was doing. After quite a delay in getting the computers to allow screen sharing with their application, they decided to investigate the proplem on their own. Don't worry, we will be back to you. In the meantime, the accountant is waiting for a simple lookup on my statement. After an hour they got back to me and suggested that I log into their revised verson of software to support online users. I did that and got the same results. No problem, the told me, we will get the statement you need and send it to you. I gave them the month and account number. After another hour or so, I got a message that there was a secure message available. I processed the necessary handshakes that took another 15 minutes. I looked at the statements and realized that they didn't send me what I had requested. They were off by a full year. I went back and looked at my email with the information that I needed, and I was very explicit with the date. They had misread what I wanted and sent me the wrong information. So, now, I cannot access my statements and they can't even send me the right ones that I need. Time to look for another bank. Anyone know a good bank?