Did A Crooked Cop Embezzle Towing Money In La Puente, California?

Flickr.com, La Puente, California

The easy, dirty, messy piles of money associated with poorly-regulated and predatory towing practices inevitably finds its way to somebody's pocket, but not always legally. Does all the wrongdoing come to light, eventually? I somehow doubt it, but in La Puente, California, it appears...

...the secrets have been exposed, and while there is not yet a conviction, there are allegations aplenty. In La Puente.

According to this article, click here, former traffic Sgt. Joe Dyer is accused of stealing nearly half a million dollars. Here's what I want to know: WHAT DID HE DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY? I mean, how shall I put it? THAT'S A LOT OF DOUGHNUTS!

The way it all shakes out: Dyer retired. His supervisor has been "reassigned" but supposedly that had "nothing to do with the investigation." (Oh, pleas!) The police union official--seemingly going through the motions of doing his job rather listlessly--says "We're not accountants, we're not money men" and blames the mess on Dyer's superiors who didn't TRAIN HIM to keep track of all that money.

Oh, like half a million bucks never existed, and just disappeared through--what? Bad bookkeeping? Into one of the many hypothetical "worm holes" of the universe? Or would those be...doughnut holes?

The money, according to the article, came from a $168 administrative fee which the city is supposed to receive every time a car is impounded. Drivers pay the fee at the sheriff's station and get a receipt, which drivers need to get their car...at the place where they pay MORE money. To get their car. Yeah, it all adds up to PUH-LENTY of money.

In La Puente.

But not all the money ended up where it was supposed to. Some records didn't match, and City Manager Carol Cowley was apparently the first person to notice. Now the very public allegation is that a big bite of cheese was ending up in NEWLY RETIRED Police Sergeant Joe Dyer's pocket.

What a mess. But it's hardly unique, and some similar stories of corruption associated with towing fees are right here on this blog.

This is what happens when low-tech methods are used, and information about tows is tightly contained and not made freely available on the internet to all jurisdictions and all people seeking out their vehicles, really THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS.

There's a big pile of dirty, dishonest cheese that piles up, and somebody in charge of that cheese is going to cut themselves off a little taste.