CITY NOT 'FINE' WITH TIX NIXER
Ex-judge’s clients on hook for tens of thousands
He promised to get their parking tickets tossed — he didn’t say he’d do it legally.
A former city parking-court judge founded a site online that offered to take care of violations for a fee, then doctored their Muni-Meter receipts to win the cases, officials told The Post.
Emmanuel Amofah spent two years hearing Parking Violations cases before writing a book called “How to Fight and Beat Your New York City Parking Tickets” and creating ParkingTicketBusters.com. The site boasts that it is “manned by former judges of the New York City Parking Violations Bureau.”
But while Amofah scored lots of wins for his clients, pocketing 20 percent of every fine he beat, he was doing so illegally, according to the city Department of Finance.
Now the agency is trying to get him permanently banned as a broker — while going after his clients to recoup the amount of the original fines, plus stiff penalties.
“They’re demolishing me,” Queens contractor Giancarlo De Lellis griped. The city is demanding he pay $132,000, which includes the $25,410 in $35 to $65 tickets his construction company racked up over three years, he said.
De Lellis believes that so many other people may have been duped by Amofah, too, that he has even set up his own site, ParkingTicketBustersScam.com, detailing the ex-judge’s antics and featuring his photo.
The city argues that Amofah’s clients should have known something was wrong, given his high success rate and because they did not have to provide him with their original Muni-Meter receipts.
“The clients were happy to continue getting their summonses dismissed even though they had never presented valid Muni-receipts in support of those dismissals,” said Department of Finance spokeswoman Sonia Alleyne, adding that Amofah has been referred to law enforcement.
But De Lellis said he assumed Amofah was above-board because he was an ex-judge.
There also were no warning signs that there was a problem with Amofah’s work until the Department of Finance began contacting his clients, De Lellis said.
“I would get an invoice [from Amofah] saying, ‘These are the amount of tickets you got this week, this is what we saved you, and this is what you owe us,’ ” the businessman said.
“He’s an ex-judge, and the city was approving these dismissals. Obviously, if the city’s OK with it, then I’m OK with it.”
The contractor added, “I’m responsible for the [initial] tickets and will pay in full now.”
“But the fact [the city is] taking a ticket and charging me times six — that will put me out of business,” he said.
A former Amofah client who runs an air-conditioning business in The Bronx said he is now on the hook for $20,000 in punitive fines on top of $4,800 for the tickets themselves.
The man, who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal from the city, accused the Finance Deartment of “convert[ing] unknowing victims of a fraudulent scheme into a financial opportunity and windfall.’’
Another parking-appeals lawyer agreed that the city is unfairly demanding maximum damages, which equate to the cost of the ticket plus nearly 200 percent in fraud fines and 300 percent in late fees, for a total of almost six times the original expired-meter fine.
“Conveniently for the city, a $65 ticket with maximum fines and penalties . . . comes out to $345. They’re stealing from people.”
Amofah did not return calls or emails seeking a comment. mjaeger@nypost.com