Iowa couple ticketed after old license plates turn up in NYC

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (WOWT) - A mystery has resurfaced in Pottawattamie County and more vehicle owners are frustrated by a lack of answers.

Two years ago , 6 News exposed how old Iowa license plates turned into the treasurer a decade ago have been caught on speed cameras in New York City, most recently in April.

It's been 12 years since Vern and Debra Harness turned in their Iowa license plates that recently showed up on a bumper in New York City.

"I've never been to New York City, and I've never had an inkling to go there," Debra Harness said.

However, New York City Traffic citations have sure come to them. The NYC finance department sent threats of a civil judgement if the couple doesn't pay $300 on four speeding tickets since April. All the citations on a van caught by a school zone camera with their old license plates.

"They don't care, they just want us to pay these bills, and if we pay these bills, we are admitting that they're still our plates and I'm not going to do that," Debra said.

The Pottawattamie County Treasurer says there are about 40 vehicle owners in the same boat.

"Well, I hope it solves all of them," Pottawattamie Co. Treasurer Lea Voss said. "This is just ridiculous what these people have gone through, and I've contacted everybody."

The Harnesses say when they turned in those plates 12 years ago, they came off their pickup truck. Now, those same plates turned up on a white van in New York City and it shouldn't take the world's greatest detective those plates are on the wrong vehicle.

"It seems very simple, but they're not being helpful at all," Debra Harness said.

The New York speed camera caught the same van on the same street in less than a month, so innocent Iowans say undeserving fine notices can be averted by New York's finest.

"Pull over the vehicle, detain them until they come up with why they got that plate," Vern Harness said. "When, where, and why."

That might help Iowa's department of transportation investigation into how ole plates got new life in New York City, because for years Iowa Department of Corrections picked them up.

"I didn't ask, I just assume they are going to recycle them." Voss said.

The DoT Investigations Bureau Director says solving this ongoing issue has not been easy. He says unfortunately investigations have not been able to determine if the Iowa plates in New York are counterfeit, or actual plates issued in Iowa at one time. Multiple attempts to work with New York Law Enforcement will continue, as does the mystery for the Harnesses and many other Iowans who turned in plates, never expecting to see them again.

"If I turn mine in, I turn them into them but from now on they'll be cut in half," Vern Harness said.

In a positive development, Vern and Debra Harness got an email from the New York City Finance Department saying all the speeding citations against them have been dismissed. The treasurer hopes that others with undeserved fines will have the same outcome.