For approximately 2 months, Richard S. Weinstock issued 13 speeding citations that would never hold up in court. Not only would they not hold up in court, but nearly every citation for each month had the same clocked speed. I find that very hard to believe and it appears that Trooper Richard S. Weinstock was doing the dirty work to fill the coffers or just being some egotistical, power hungry asshole.

02/15/2010 – Citation No. T0019810-0 – 59MPH in 50MPH zone – Plead Guilty
02/15/2010 – Citation No. T0019811-1 – 57MPH in 50MPH zone – Plead Guilty
02/15/2010 – Citation No. T0039503-2 – 58MPH in 50MPH zone – Plead Guilty
02/15/2010 – Citation No. T0039504-3 – 57MPH in 50MPH zone – Plead Guilty
02/15/2010 – Citation No. T0039506-5 – 58MPH in 50MPH zone – Plead Guilty
02/20/2010 – Citation No. T0041161-1 – 58MPH in 50MPH zone – Found Not Guilty
02/20/2010 – Citation No. T0041165-5 – 58MPH in 50MPH zone – Found Not Guilty
03/09/2010 – Citation No. T0072238-5 – 53MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty
03/09/2010 – Citation No. T0072241-1 – 53MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty
03/09/2010 – Citation No. T0072246-6 – 54MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty
03/25/2010 – Citation No. T0087444-0 – 54MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty
03/25/2010 – Citation No. T0087439-2 – 54MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty
03/25/2010 – Citation No. T0087430-0 – 54MPH in 45MPH zone – Plead Guilty

Title 75 Subsection 3368(c)(4) of the Pennsylvania Vehicle code specifically states the following:

no person may be convicted upon evidence obtained through the use of devices authorized by paragraph (3) in an area where the legal speed limit is less than 55 miles per hour if the speed recorded is less than ten miles per hour in excess of the legal speed limit

All of the citations issued were less than ten miles per hour in excess of the legal speed limit which was less than 55 miles per hour. The actual citations also have no indication that they were in a school or active work zone, which is the only way these would hold up. Richard S. Weinstock surely must have known these were bogus tickets, so why was he issuing them? Perhaps he had a nice racket setup with Michael G. Dotzel to give out bogus tickets in hopes that those cited did not know the law and would just pay up? Not only does Richard Weinstock not no the law, but neither does Michael G. Dotzel of Magisterial District 11-3-07, who willingly convicted the cited. Certainly these tickets should have been tossed out along with Richard Weinstock. Only 2 motorists out of the 13 apparently new the law and were smart enough to challenge it. The rest paid the bogus tickets and most likely had their insurance raised due to it. In total, $1,384 in fines were paid and wrongfully collected.

BONUS: Not only does Richard S. Weinstock issue bogus speeding tickets, but apparently some think he is a sex crazed pervert who chose to sexually discriminate a female Pennsylvania State Police employee by the name of Laura Zelinski in 1999. Once, Weinstock put his hand on Zelinski’s leg and propositioned her. Another time, he described sexual acts in graphic detail. One day he told her he could see her underwear. And on another occasion he told her, “If I can see down your sweater, everyone else can.” After Zelinski complained to a supervisor, she was transferred shortly after and filed a sexual discrimination lawsuit. You can read all about it here in the court document: Zelinski v. PSP

How the hell is this guy allowed to be a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper with all of this blatant misconduct and why is Michael G. Dotzel allowed to run an illegal speeding ticket racket?

To start off, part of my RTKL request was for all of the traffic citations and calibration/testing certificates for one specific GHS Radar gun (GHS2730 to be exact). No particular reason why I chose that specific GHS Radar Gun, other than that I just wanted to do a small controlled study on a single radar unit to see if I could identify any odd patterns with either the citations or calibration tests. Well here are my short initial findings (just got the documents today).

Calibration testing history for GHS2730:

Bold is my own emphasis. Now when I first reviewed some of the citations given with GHS2730, I thought I saw a glaring problem, however, I was mistaken. In 2009, a House Bill was passed and according to Pennsylvania’s Vehicle Code, Title 75, Subsection 3368(d), radar units only need to be calibrated yearly. Previously they needed to be calibrated every 60 days. Why do you think this was done? Quick way to make money and create less possibilities for lapses in calibration and create less court challenges? A February 2004 staff study completed by Sergeant Martin L. Henry III of the Pennsylvania State Police, which I’ll be posting at a later date, even states that “this legislation would affect current Department operations and require changes to existing regulations. This may also have an effect on maintenance. Common maintenance issues detected during routine calibration may not be observed in a timely manner, resulting in more costly repairs.”

As you can see, the table shows some slight lapses. One point of interest is the testing on July 11 and July 16 of 2008. The calibration charts looked nearly identical, so perhaps this particular unit had field problems reported after the first calibration. I have no other explanation for why it would be tested again so soon and I can’t verify if any tickets were given out in that time frame because all of those citations are hand written and did not copy well.

Not only is there a greater time frame for these radar devices to become uncalibrated and start presenting problems, but many of the troopers using them do not have the proper training to identify problems.  Most troopers are completely unaware of the reported problems with GHS radar guns and have no knowledge on what will cause false readings, relying on the output 100%. This is not proper use of a radar gun and you can use this lack of knowledge as ammo in court. Keep fighting!

To keep things short, the issue at hand was that GHS radar units were banned from use during from September 3, 2003 to December 14, 2003 in 2003 and newer models of Ford Crown Victoria’s and Josh Losito was clocked with a GHS radar gun on December 4, 2003 while the guns were banned from use.

The trooper that stopped Josh was driving a 2001 model Ford Crown Victoria, so the ban did not apply to him. A slight technicality, but it cost a win.

Frankly I think if there was a ban, it should have been a wide-spread ban regardless of the year of the vehicle because, as John Timothy Shingara stated, the problems occurred in Crown Victoria models of varying years.

Download the article here.

Again, this gag order should have never been imposed to begin with. If anything it should be seen as retaliation to the Philadelphia Daily News, all the lawyers and other various news sources reporting on the problem.

Why the gag order if the Pennsylvania State Police have nothing to hide? They obviously had something to hide and internal memos show that.

Download the article here.

Now if the GHS radar guns are so accurate, why would the Pennsylvania State Police request to have a gag order in the case to prevent newspaper reporters and lawyers from releasing documents to the public?

Simple answer: They don’t want the public to know the truth about the problems with their GHS radar guns. The Philadelphia Daily News was simply doing their job by reporting their findings and research to the public. Obviously the state police do not want the public to know about the problems when they are making $26 million a year on speeding tickets alone and all of the tickets that earned the money could be contested due to faulty equipment.

This gag order should have never been issued. The gag order was eventually lifted and Judge Sylvia Rambo recused herself from the case. I wonder why?

Download the article here.

In short, this response is the same thing the State Police has been saying all along…the GHS radar guns are accurate. This response details the actions that the State Police took to correct the problem (Read: what they did in attempts to cover-up the problem because the public found out).

Download the article here.

It further states how the University of Pittsburgh findings contradict with the findings of three previous studies and how Marlin Mickle states the study was never done to show the guns accuracy, even though the Pennsylvania State Police continue to state that it does show the guns are accurate.

Download the article here.

Now I don’t condone drunk driving, but he did have a case if he was initially only pulled over for speeding. He hired a lawyer, Jason Jenkins, and subpoenaed John Timothy Shingara to testify. A ruling was not made at the time of the article.

Download the article here.

Not only does the report show how easy it is to obtain false readings from objects such as cell phones and watches, but Marlin Mickle, the professor conducting the study, stated the following:

“The goal of our study was not to ascertain the accuracy of the radar gun.”

Why are state police using the University of Pittsburgh study exactly for that then? I’ll tell you the answer…they were grasping at straws and this was their last one. They were so brazen, they didn’t even notify Marlin Mickle about their reasoning and purpose of the study or past reported problems. Marlin Mickle had no idea Radargate was even going on and that he was being used as a pawn in the grand scheme of things.

Download the article here.

Download the article here.