Joe Was Arrested

[Unicorn Dreams]

Still a non moving violation on the vehicle as it was parked,

[familycruisers]

False imprisonment stories , media love those if they are true and can be proved... Talk about adding to the cruising kitty!

[Adamante]

Originally Posted by Aussiesuede

Did the officer ask how long you'd been living on the boat? Hopefully for your sake, you did not answer more than a year.

Whatever the answer was, I hope for your sake it was the truth. It will be trivial for the DA to subpoena the marina records to check out your story. And if it doesn't match, you could face perjury, which is a felony.

Sounds like a tough situation. If it weren't for the prospect of losing the security license, I'd say "pay the two dollars" and move on. Whatever the fine is, it would be much cheaper than a legal fight. A good attorney will ask for a $5K retainer and easily blow through that in round one. If you have to appeal, it gets very, very expensive.

I wish you luck. I am glad you posted this, it's a good cautionary tale. Plus it's so much fun to play armchair attorney.

[Tori]

We are located in Sanford which is in Seminole county. We were honest and said we were staying at the marina a few
miles away for three plus months we also tried to tell the officer about the home we own which is our address but he said "shut up I have heard enough". He repeatedly accused both of us of lying and threatened us.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by bella

please don't feel that way..this is an incredibly beautiful place. sailing in SW fla is wondeful, esp in the winter when everyone else are on the hard and teeth chattering.
I know places that would leave you stunned with thier beauty.. like all states we have our glitches. I have never lived anywhere there is always some local yokel that has an agenda...one barney fife who has some axe to grind about something. Its the nature of the law enforcement beast. Never let that ruin your day.... in any place if you drive around with expired tags it sets you up for getting stopped.

While working short term up in Maryland I had my license stolen.. or so I thought... to get a replacement Florida used my archived photo and the address in maryland. You should have seen the look on the cop who stopped me face when he saw a maryland address on a florida drivers license. He ran it and came back I was legal but he found it not too amusing. No ticket.. I was a VA nurse on temp assignment..

Please come down and see for yourself... it all depends, too on where you go and what you do.. just as anyplace you or I visit..

I live and cruise in Florida.

The problem is not Florida's beauty. It's the Wyatt Earp mentality regarding law enforcement combined with using traffic tickets as fundraising.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Tori

We are located in Sanford which is in Seminole county. We were honest and said we were staying at the marina a few
miles away for three plus months we also tried to tell the officer about the home we own which is our address but he said "shut up I have heard enough". He repeatedly accused both of us of lying and threatened us.

I am a little confused here. Sanford is NOT a few miles from the coast.. I am a Floridian I know exactly where this town is...
1. the incident happened in Sanford or your perm residence is in Sanford.
2. the marina is located exactly where?

3. why were you knowingly driving around on expired tags?
4. Who owns the company? If Joe is an employee, the company needs to anty up for a lawyer to get this taken care of. If Joe is the owner, why would he risk his license with expired tags?
5. you gave way to much info.. when the cop started asking about the body armor etc.. All you do is tell them you work for X Security and to verify your employment with the company and give the phone number..

It seems to me that a lot is missing in this story and that wrongs were commited on both sides of the fence.. perhaps not intentionally by you...Seems you gave way to much info. I would strongly suggest the next time you go out riding around in the work car all his 'gear' be safely stowed in the trunk. It is just common sense to do this.. Not to mention it removes all temptation by the smash and grab crowd.

A word of advice from an old lady with a cop bf.... tell them as little as possible.. when in doubt say nothing and try not to start explaining yourself or your actions. the more info you give, the more they use against you.
By your words the guy wanted a confrontation, he didn't get one.. and his buds backed your story... file a complaint, make the company pay your legal bills and get on with life.. You are not required to change your address if the house wherever it is located in Fla is your legal perm address.. and it would be very smart to file a "declaration of domicile" and register it at the Seminole County Courthouse..

before anyone complains about tickets as revenue.. its been going on for yrs... many, many, many yrs and not likely to change..
For those who complain about Florida... you might want to look at moving elsewhere and do the research on why I came home... NO state income tax, no tangible tax as say SC of 26% on all my toys.... don't have to pay a tax on my car before I renew my tags and before I pay my car insurance... NO winter clothes... NO snow... crappy cops are everywhere not just florida.
I can go on but you get the picture.. I live here for a reason... I learned a long time ago to take the bad with the goood... and if you want bad, go live in Belize and see how the government there milks the expat retirees for all they can afford and then some.. try getting into a car accident in the dominican republic that someone else causes.. the gringo usually ends up in jail... no, I am quite content to live here amid the glorious sunshine and sailing days I get.. It could be far worse... I could be in snow.. shudders..

[Tori]

Umm if you know Florida then you might know that Sanford sits next to a 9000 acre lake on the St. Johns river. I never said it is a company owned vehicle it is our personal vehicle just like 90 % of the other private security vehicles in the state. We are not rich people and private security companies do not pay to maintain our personal vehicles unlike police and sheriffs. We answered the officers questions directly and politely and did not volunteer information...however when four armed officers are forcibly asking you questions you try to comply to the best of your ability. We did nothing wrong thousands of people have expired tags and thousands of people do not change their addresses when they reside on a boat, however, THEY DO NOT GO TO JAIL AND RECEIVE CRIMINAL CHARGES! Citations would have been acceptable but an actual arrest is not a reasonable action for an officer to take. Sorry to type in caps but jeez people what if you were arrested or you had to bail your loved one out of jail????

[sailpower]

Tori, you really don't owe anyone on this site an explanation. You might want to consider closing this topic.

Good luck with all this.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by sailpower

Tori, you really don't owe anyone on this site an explanation. You might want to consider closing this topic.

Good luck with all this.

Gotta agree but from the other side of the earth (and down under), this is quite a interesting thread. 90 posts and over 2,500 views in 24 hours!

I am sitting in the sun on a beautiful spring morning and I could be sailing but instead I am getting another fascinating insight to the minds and hearts of our American friends. Money couldn't buy this type of "education".

The only downside is that it certainly appears that Tori and her friend are paying a harsh price for my (our?) enlightenment. I wish her the best possible outcome.

[Tori]

I don't owe any explanations but like any other law abiding citizen I am justifiably angry about an officer of the peace abusing his power like this. We live on a boat because we couldn't afford the house any more and all we were doing was getting papers notarized so Joe can get a better job. It is our car and we can drive it even if Joe is off duty. It happens to have AC which our other vehicles do not. Just because some ******* cop has a beef against security officers we get harassed and Joe gets arrested on some stupid charge. Now he has an arrest record which is great in his line of work...now I know how people who are profiled because of race feel.
On the other hand some of the links to statutes and other information has been very helpful so thanks to all for your input and sorry for venting in a public forum...

[osirissail]

Problem with most "stories" posted on the internet is that they are rarely the "whole story." It is natural to post only what is felt as the highlights of the story rather than complete details. This leads to a raft of suppositions by others who cannot understand why and what happened as there are too many "missing" details. Such things make "juicy" posts but often lead to a large amount of misunderstanding.
- - Without getting into specific details with this case, it is evident by the "dribbling out" of additional information that there is a lot of "background" that is not being disclosed and this leads to false assumptions and negative opinions about both the State and the LEO's in that location.
- - We could continue to press for the "rest of the story" but that would probably be fruitless and possibly embarrassing to parties involved. As others have sensed and commented there are a lot of incongruities in what has been presented.
- - There are lessons to be learned in any case as "bella" and others have commented upon. Primary is for those cruising - not static live aboards - keeping your various Federal, State and other addresses, licenses, bank addresses, etc., etc. coordinated so that there is no obvious conflicts between them goes a long way to making your cruising more enjoyable.
- - Static live aboards are a whole other realm and even there keeping your actual place of residence and all your above "paperwork" neat and clean generally go a very long way to avoiding these types of circumstances. When one document says one thing and another says something else and you say something different from them, suspicion is aroused and gives an opening to whomever may or may not be "out to get ya." Officials and bureaucrats abhor conflicts in paperwork and stories especially in the modern world of drug trafficking, terrorism and 10-dollar lawyers they can really get their backs up and wreck havoc on your life.
- - Keeping your legal and personal life/stories simple and direct goes a long way to keeping you away from such bad experiences. Trying to "game/push the system" to save money rarely works and when caught gets really expensive.

[spostamento nobile]

I grew up in Fla.. I find the OP's story to be the norm, not the exception. Florida is very much a police state. I once got a ticket for running a red light, at 4am, on a ten speed bike. I couldn't trip the light, and the road was deserted. Still $54 & three points against my driver's license. I miss the sun & beach, but not the narrow minded intolerance of the Stasi.

[Ziggy]

Tori and Joe's misfortune brings up a more general question. Suppose I leave my house to go cruising for one year. I still own the house, pay the taxes and utilities, but stay on the boat during my extended vacation. Am I required to change my address? What if my cruise is only 3 months? One month? One week? What if I get a temporary job during my cruise? What if I telecommute from my boat? Is the law clear on this issue?

[familycruisers]

Biggest stumbling block seems to be if you have registered a vehicle, and anything to do with registration issues being criminal seems to be only in FL.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by Ziggy

Tori and Joe's misfortune brings up a more general question. Suppose I leave my house to go cruising for one year. I still own the house, pay the taxes and utilities, but stay on the boat during my extended vacation. Am I required to change my address? What if my cruise is only 3 months? One month? One week? What if I get a temporary job during my cruise? What if I telecommute from my boat? Is the law clear on this issue?

These answers have been given many times in other threads about banking, investments, etc. For shorter durations things are less complicated - people go on vacations all the time and don't get into problems. But for longer than a month you had better make some plans.
- - You need to have a place for mail from governments, banks, tax authorities, etc. to get to you while you are away. You must maintain some contact with your web of financial and other obligations as you might just get an IRS notice with 15 day or 90 day reply necessary. You just cannot have mail to pile up on your house's front porch for months or a year or more.
- - The laws are very clear on the whole subject, and thousands of folks go cruising short and long term without problems because they take care of the details before setting off.
- - Unless you have someone living in the house and willing to be your "mail sorter" and forwarder, you will probably set up a relative or a commercial PBO outfit like St Brendans Isle or others to handle your mail.
- - Logically then if you did not have someone living in the house, you would be shifting your mailing addresses to the new "mail sorter/handler." Doing so you need to also coordinate/align all your other legal residence addresses to the new one for your long term cruise.
- - Keeping the whole thing inside your "home State" is the easiest and change of address procedures are the easiest which is why lots of cruisers end up with Florida addresses of "Green Cove Springs." Moving your array of addresses to another State for a short term gets really complicated as different tax liabilities may exist.
- - It is when you don't take care of the "details" that stuff starts to snowball out of control and you get behind the legal "8-ball" real quick. Laziness will get you killed offshore in a sailboat and on shore it will invite all sorts of complications and consequences you could probably do without.