A man who was recently caught going 35 miles over the speed limit on a Georgia freeway was perplexed to find cops handing him a $1.4 million ticket.
Georgia man surprised after receiving speeding ticket for $1.4 million https://t.co/ie0oJBgwE8
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) October 16, 2023
The man, Connor Cato, was driving home through Savannah, Georgia, on Sept. 2, 2023, when Georgia State Patrol caught him going at 90 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, according to WSAV-TV.
Cato says that because of his actions, he knew he would receive a speeding ticket, just not one bearing $1.4 million.
“‘$1.4 million,’ the lady told me on the phone. I said, ‘This might be a typo’ and she said, ‘No sir, you either pay the amount on the ticket or you come to court on Dec. 21 at 1:30 p.m.,’” Cato said.
Criminal defense attorney Sneh Patel couldn’t believe the hefty fine attributed to Cato for speeding.
“At first when I was asked about this, I thought it was a clerical error. But then you told me you followed up and apparently it’s not a clerical error,” Patel said. “But again, I have never seen something like this, ever.”
Patel explained that individuals never have to pay over the maximum amount for traffic violations, citing that misdemeanor charges in Georgia cannot exceed $1,000.
“Not $1.4 million — that’s something that goes into cases that are drug trafficking, murders or aggravated assaults, something of that nature,” Patel added.
Luckily for Cato, it appears the $1.4 million figure was automatically generated by an e-citation software used by the local Recorder’s Court that is applied to “super speeders” going 35 miles over a given speed limit in Georgia, according to a spokesman for Savannah’s city government, Joshua Peacock.
A judge has yet to set the real fine, which cannot go over the limit of $1,000.
“We do not issue that placeholder as a threat to scare anybody into court, even if this person heard differently from somebody in our organization,” Peacock said in a statement, as reported by the New York Post.
“The programmers who designed the software used the largest number possible because super speeder tickets are a mandatory court appearance and do not have a fine amount attached to them when issued by police,” he added.
