1,500 people losing their licenses after "breakdown" in Allegheny County court records department
Hundreds of former defendants say an administrative screw-up in Allegheny County could derail their lives and their careers.
Whether it was drinking or speeding or some other charge, judges have ordered the suspension of tens of thousands of driver's licenses in Allegheny County over the past 12 years, but several hundreds of those drivers were never notified until now. They're being told to surrender their licenses or file costly appeals.
"It was definitely a breakdown in the system," court records director Michael McGeever said. "It was very shocking."
It can only be seen as a massive screw-up in the Allegheny County Department of Court Records.
After a judge orders a license suspension, the department is supposed to forward that ruling to PennDOT, which then notifies the defendant. But a recent audit revealed that about 1,500 of those rulings were never sent. Now, those drivers are getting letters from PennDOT telling them to surrender their license.
"Now, over a decade later, they're getting hit with a license suspension that could potentially cause them to lose their job, lose everything that they've worked for," said attorney John Biedrzycki.
Biedrzycki represents several clients, one of whom was convicted of driving under the influence eight years ago. Since then, she's cleaned up her life, becoming a nurse who travels in her job. He says this delayed suspension could cost her her career.
"When she's done everything she could possibly do to atone for what had happened and turned her life completely around to a model citizen and now she's going to have everything she's worked for stripped away because of this license suspension," Biedrzycki said.
McGeever says the failure involves clerks, supervisors and the system itself, and he's putting in safeguards to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. He can only tell those impacted to file appeals.
"I feel extremely bad. I was sickened by this," McGeever said.
But there is no blanket pardon. These letters tell the defendants to surrender their license and face a potentially lengthy and costly appeals process.