PORTLAND, Maine — One of four men accused of counterfeiting and selling Maine motor vehicle inspection stickers has started serving his jail sentence, while the cases against the other three move toward a resolution.
Authorities say 23-year-old Shane Jones reported to the York County jail on Monday to serve a 60-day sentence after pleading guilty last month to aggravated forgery.
Jones and three other men were arrested in May in connection with printing then selling the phony stickers in the Biddeford area for $75 to $100 each.
Police say they have found about 150 vehicles with fake stickers.
The Portland Press Herald reports that 34-year-old Christopher Perry has also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to start serving a 45-day sentence in January.
Two other suspects have court dates pending.
The real scam here is the vehicle inspection system itself….
I agree to some point. I lived in Florida for a couple years and there was no inspection law there and I def. dont want some of the vehicles I saw there on the roads here.
Why, you see them here anyway. The problem is that the system needs to better enforced and the rules need to be updated. Here it seems that unless you know someone, or their family, you can’t get anything done. Had a car that was perfectly legal, all that was wrong was the passenger side ball joint was a little shaky, no big deal, but they didn’t inspect it, yet the person in front of me, the son of a local snow remover who happenes to clear their driveway, had no rear bumper, hardly an exhaust, and lissing a back window, yet got a brand new sticker, without even an inspection. GIVE ME A BREAK.
I know some folks who “mechanic shop”, like some pill addicts “doctor shop”. After 5 or 6 attempts at different inspection stations, voila!
LePage could give us all a $12 tax break by eliminating this dumb law.
Tax Break? And people wonder why the governemtn is running out of money. No tax breaks, no susidies. If your car isn’t worthy, too bad. What they need to is do what other states do. If you go and a light is out, they give you a temp sticker for a set amoutn of time to get it fixed, if you get it done in that time period you get your sticker. No having to pay $12.50 every time you go to these pirates and they find every little thing, differnt things wrong with the same car. According to the laws, if you do not have a valid sticker your not can’t even legally drive it to the inspection station to get it inspected. Waht are you supposed to do, get it towed.
According to the law you could get a permit, to move it to an inspection station, for free. And you pay 12.50, if it needs work you get the work done and get a sticker, you don’t need to pay the same station another 12.50. I have a better idea though then the temp sticker. How about if you get a ticket you can send evidence of your vehicle being inspected within 10 days of being stopped (or that you have sold or unregistered the vehicle) and the ticket gets dismissed. Most people do not get their cars fixed because they have no money, and a hundred dollar and change fine doesn’t help them out any.
system needs to be better enforced? you’re kidding right?
many cars that do not pass the already too strict state inspection standards are still road worthy and safe.
at least lower the inspection time to 2 years instead of every year.
I agree, you see some really scary cars there. Our weather is a big factor versus Florida. Bald tires, non operating ant-lock brakes and defective airbags are a problem in warm weather states, here in Maine they are deadly on our often icy roads.
I don’t agree with your anti-lock brakes comment, they may work good for wet roads, but are worthless on snow/ ice covered roads.
TSC you are 100% correct. I lived in Idaho for several years where no vehicle inspection is required. The Idaho State legislature did a survey looking at all other states, some with no vehicle inspection and those with varying inspection requirements to see what inspection actually did for accident prevention. The result was almost nothing. Accidents were caused by drivers and road conditions. Vehicle inspection was totally unnecessary. After I returned to Maine I forwarded those results to Governor King who said it was a tool the Maine State Police didn’t want to lose. Currently Maine gets about $8 from each inspection sticker. Money, not safety is the driving force behind vehicle inspections.
Well lets see the State of Maine says that if your car has rust on the brake lines it fails. Every car that has been through one Maine winter fails on that alone. Unless you have the real high dollar stainless steel ones of course. The whole thing is a scam.
In most cases the reason for corrosion on brake lines is the corrosive chemicals used on winter roads. The same state that requires you to replace your brake lines is the one that caused the corrosion in the first place.
it creates sales tax
The other end of it: Sticker placed on truck (by mechanic who’s been inspecting for over 40 years), truck owner uses truck like a skidder to haul out pulpwood and rips off the brakes lines/gets into accident. State Police come to the mechanic and take his inspection license for 6 months for inspecting truck with “bad brake lines”. Yup, they did…… Bass Ackwards.
Mainers will do anything to save a buck !
I was pulled over in southern Maine for–supposedly–having a possibly fake inspection sticker, which I didn’t. The cop just used it as an excuse to profile me when I wasn’t breaking any laws. However, I have heard of a number of people who have lost their licenses due to DUIs and get fake inspections stickers to use on their vehicles so that they can get back and forth from work (well, bub, you gotta feed your kids).
60 days out in 10 for couterfeiting ..isnt Maine a great place to break the law.
Everyone blames the inspection system or the mechanic for making them do the repairs that are needed on their vehicles.
The next time someone blows a rusted out brake line and runs into your car or even worse runs over someone tell me State Inspections are not needed.
The next time someone with bald tires slides across the road and hits you head on tell me State Inspections are a farce.
The next time someones child dies because the exhaust was leaking into the vehicle tell me it $12.50 is too much to pay have your car checked to see if is safe.
If you think an Inspection Mechanic is asking you to have unnecessary work done before they will sign their name to a safety inspection sticker, then get a second opinion.
If you know of an Inspection Mechanic or shop that sells inspection stickers rather then doing proper inspections by all means turn them in to the State Police (The State Police Enforce Inpection Laws and licences Inspection Mechanics)
Then by all means never drive in the 33 states with NO state inspection.
If I choose to drive in one of those states I will drive my car knowing it is safe and I will keep in mind the State I may or may not be driving in has no inspection laws.
If everyone was a mechanic, knew how to, and could afford to take care of their own vehicles maybe we wouldn’t need inspections. The point I was trying to make was a Safety Inspection is just that, ” A SAFETY INSPECTION”. In some cases a small problem might be found that might turn into a large problem or even result in injuries or death. It’s not just the State of Maine or mechanics getting rich off your $12.50
Safety inspection will not stop an accident and lipitor will not stop a heart attack
Bald tires? Worn out brakes? Those are things that should FAIL your inspection. Slightly loose wheel bearings, ball joints, and the ALWAYS present flakey brake linings are NOT! Another BIG Gov. regulation gone amok. In all honesty, it’s become a very expensive scam. Nothing like a $1000 ball-joint job to ruin your MONTH!
When a mechanic signs an inspection sticker he is telling you he believes your car is safe to drive for at least one more year. If your wheel bearing or ball joint is loose and 1 week, 1 month. or 6 months down the road it completly fails, your car goes off the road and hits a pole, you do you think you are going to blame?
That is exactly right. Customers have an extremely short memory about things like that and will turn on you in an instant when something goes wrong.
No more letting something that is borderline slide, you just can’t do it anymore.
As far as brake lines nobody wants to be in the position of that mechanic and shop that had just inspected the pick-up that went into Moosehead Lake.
You want a car that doesn’t eat ball joints and wheel bearings then research it before you buy. You want a car that never needs brake lines then buy a Volvo or one of the other cars that have copper/nickle alloy lines as standard equipment.
If you have any brake lines replaced insist that the shop use copper/nickle alloy line, it is a little more money but you will not have to do it again.
Oh there you go, it costs a little more to do it right…….it must be the State Of Maine’s fault…
The information is readily available on the internet.
Inspection laws are needed in this highly corrosive winter climate and there are too many people that will buy another big screen TV before putting a couple hundred bucks into the car to be safe.
The car does not entertain them………..
So in your opinion you feel there is no abuse of the system whatsoever and ALL brake linings that have a flake of rust or a ball-joint that has the slightest play in it needs an expensive repair job? If so, you are very naive and also don’t know much about cars.
I agree with you there are some inspection stations that abuse the public and
those stations should have their licences revolked.
I might know just a little more about cars then you think.
The system is flawed big time. When was the last time if ever you heard of a rusted brake line blowing and causing a accident. I have been in the trucking busniess for most of my adult life. I know inspections not the stupid car ones Maine demands but the real truck ones. The ones that trucks are pulled over randomly and everything from fuel to brakes are checked. If cars had to meet the same requirement as trucks do fully 50 percent of cars would be put “out of service” ( when a truck fails any part of a random inspection a sticker is placed on the windshield and the truck is not allowed to be moved under its own power until that item is fixed).
As far as you thing about reporting car inspection stations even when found to be faulty they only get a suspended right to do the inspections.
The inspection process is dependent on the inspector more then anything. If you want to see how varied it truly is take any car and go to 5 different shops and have each one inspect the car. I bet every shop will have a different list of problems. Thus the stupidity of the system. If your car fails all you have to do is go to another shop and so on.
I agree with you the system is flawed which why now when you bring your vehicle to an inspection station and it doesn’t pass a safety inspection that inspection mechanic is suppose to cut your sticker in half to let the next station know you are sticker shopping. Some stations do this while others don’t which is breaking the law.
With all the calcium being used on our roads, brake lines, fuel lines, rotors, calipers, etc. are rusting away at an alarming rate. I’ve seen many cars that should be taken off the road due to rust. If you don’t beleive me check with your own mechanic.
I have personally witnessed an instance where a person brought a pick-up into a shop with a balljoint that had a half of an inch play and was ready to fall out. When asked by the Inspection Mechanic how many places he been to try to get an inspection he replied five. Thats $62.50 he had spent so far and still no sticker instead of fixing the problem making his vehicle safe for the road.
I’ve seen accidents caused by mechanical failure so you won’t be able convince me that Safety Inspections are a bad thing.
2 yrs ago I went to have my ranger inspected,but it didn’t pass. They wanted to charge me over 600.00 for repairs that I knew I didn’t need. I decided to take it to another place and noticed the place before had cut half the sticker off to indicate it wasn’t inspectable. After that I have my boyfriend take it to be inspected.
Yeap, I bet he got it inspected, didn’t he?
He did need to fix something minor,but yea it got inspectd.
The $ 12 fee go’s right to LePage’s pocket. The mechanic doing the inspection makes nothing. So, he will find unnecessary work to do, so they can make money to.
Thus the SCAM….
I’ve been turning wrenches all my life.In the middle of a total restoration now.I say this because ,although I don’t make a living as a mechanic,I could. I know that a large number of service garages make a large percentage of their income from work that “has” to be done before they will give you a sticker.You get a laundry list of things they say you need.You then can go to another garage,and they give you their laundry list before they will “give” you a sticker.Problem is,the lists are not even close to the same.Then,take a look out in their parking lot,and the mechanics 30 year old bomber has a sticker on it? I think one thing that would help this problem…Don’t let mechanics put their own stickers on,or for anyone that works for the garage.Make them go to some independant and get a sticker.Maybe they won’t be so fast to come up with uneeded work for a sticker.
Get a felony drug trafficing charge and the person gets 2 weeks.Go figure.
60-day sentence ? This is a joke. This guy is “under the table” selling fake stickers, Oh well… WRONG… Unsafe vehiles need to be OFF THE ROADS!
omg…such a horrible crime…and yet banksters on wall street were able to fraud americans and their government – yet not one of them have been indicted..let’s talk about the real crimes of our time
One, their should be no inspections in Maine, 33 states cant be wrong and two there is a guy driving around Bangor everyday with a Toyota pickup that hasnt had a sticker in years on it and never gets stopped, a station owner in Bangor on Broadway told him just last month, dont even bring it in my yard again, even though the guy driving the truck is a real nice guy.
The State could free up 10 State Troopers and use them for what they do best if they used there head. Come on Lepage you are cutting everything else. Do something in the inspection system.
Inspect them the way they do in Missouri. Every time you register your vehicle you have to have a new inspection sticker, proof of insurance, a driver’s license, AND proof you paid you personal property taxes for the past year. If you don’t have any of these things you don’t register a vehicle.
Enforcement was easy the state police hung out at the registration office and if you came out and jumped in a junker they escorted you to their portable inspection station. If your vehicle failed there you called a wrecker. The station that passed your car got a ticket the same day.
Yeah, that’s EXACTLY how I want my Govt. to work… NOT!
People have done alot worse and recieved alot less sentence. Maine is one of the few States that require an inspection. If this is the worst thing that happens today it gonna be a good day.