Nassau County won’t have to pay back $400 million in illegal red-light camera fees as a judge bizarrely ruled drivers voluntarily paid the fines — even though they were threatened with getting their licenses suspended.
The “outrageous” ruling by County Supreme Court Justice Thomas Rademaker has the plaintiffs’ attorney calling for the judge to be removed from the bench while Nassau administrators hold onto improper administrative fees it took in from drivers for over a decade.
“Judge Rademacher issued a radical decision and ruled, despite Nassau County’s illegality, its citizens paid voluntarily,” attorney David Raimondo, who represents drivers in cases against Nassau and Suffolk County, said of the decision.
“This ruling was so far off from the law that you can’t even comprehend it,” he added, claiming the judge issued the ruling to protect the county from its massive liability.
Raimondo questioned how the judge could view the payments as “voluntary” when Nassau threatened to revoke licenses and registrations, boot and tow people’s cars — and even put a mark on credit reports if the fee is not paid.
“There was no ability to contest any administrative fee,” Raimondo said, likening the county’s threats to “economic coercion” that has left drivers with no choice but to pay up or face serious consequences.
The lawsuit, first filed in 2016, sought to recover the hundreds of millions that Nassau and Suffolk counties both pocketed through added illegal surcharges from their red-light camera programs.
Since 2009, drivers who got hit with red light camera tickets in Nassau had to pay an extra $100 “driver responsibility” fee in addition to the main $50 fine for running the intersection. In Suffolk, that added charge was a $30 administrative fee.
But last November, after a 10-year court battle, the state appellate division ruled those additional fees were illegal, since it made the maximum price of the fine jump to over $50, and halted any further issued tickets from being subjected to the added charges.
Meanwhile, Suffolk is on the verge of agreeing to a nearly $91 million settlement to reimburse drivers for the illegal charges and may strike a deal as early as Monday, according to sources familiar with the negotiations — which just made some drivers even angrier with Nassau.
“Voluntary my ass,” Jacqueline Phillips, who previously paid a red light ticket in the county, told The Post about the ruling.
“They threaten you if you don’t pay — if I told them I would pay the ticket and not the admin fee, they would laugh in my face then suspend my license,” she added.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman declined to comment.
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