On most mornings for years, an employee in Cleveland Clerk of Courts Earle B. Turner’s office reviewed an electronic log of parking tickets paid the previous day online or by phone.

The employee’s task was to identify drivers who paid the tickets tied to blocks on their vehicle registrations. Then, in certain cases, the employee manipulated the drivers’ payments.

Interviews with former employees and documents suggest Turner’s office did this for two decades as leverage – a way to pressure drivers to pay additional tickets they owed but were not legally required to pay to remove the blocks.

The practice led some drivers to pay hundreds of dollars more than necessary at the time, while leaving some unable to come up with the money to restore their registrations. It also created two systems of justice – one for drivers who knew the law and one for those who didn’t. 

Some of the clerk’s practices – called into question during the past several months by Signal Cleveland – sparked a meeting between the City of Cleveland’s law department and Turner’s office to outline the city’s “legal concerns.” 

“This was the first time the Law Department was made aware of the issues,” city spokesman Tyler Sinclair said last month in response to a detailed email about Turner’s operations.

Turner’s office manipulated drivers’ credit card payments

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles can place drivers on a registration hold — officially known as Drivers with Excessive Tickets Excluded from Registration. The designation is referred to as a “DETER hold.” 

A DETER hold is applied when drivers accumulate at least three unpaid parking tickets within a set period. Unlike drivers with just one or two unpaid tickets, these drivers cannot renew their registrations. 

At the clerk’s office, the holds were used to take advantage of drivers. Here’s how it worked: 

When an employee identified drivers who had just paid tickets linked to a DETER hold, the employee searched for tickets in the drivers’ names that were too old or too new to be included in those holds, or for tickets tied to other license plates registered in their names that had not yet triggered a separate DETER hold.

If such tickets existed, the employee manipulated the drivers’ credit card payments, removing $1 from their transactions, leaving them short of the amount required to clear the blocks on their registrations. 

Turner’s employee then applied that $1 to tickets not tied to drivers’ DETER holds, creating false records of what drivers actually paid.

Now, unable to renew their plates at the BMV, these drivers were forced to contact Turner’s office, which told them that they needed to pay off all tickets in their name — including old traffic camera tickets, which by law do not apply to DETER holds.

“This often led to panicked phone calls from drivers at the BMV, insisting they paid their DETER tickets listed on their notices,” said a former clerk’s office employee, one of two longtime employees reached by Signal Cleveland who handled parking ticket payments. 

The employees asked not to be publicly identified, fearing reprisals from Turner and possible backlash from drivers who might blame them for the scheme. The former employees – who collectively worked more than 70 years in the clerk’s office under multiple elected officials –  said the practice was implemented during Turner’s tenure, which began in 1996. 

“Supervisors insisted we tell drivers that it was our policy that they needed to pay off everything when they called or came in to remove a DETER block,” one of the former employees said. “Some people paid, but others could not.”

Through his spokesperson, Obie Shelton, Turner declined numerous requests to talk about his operations and policies around DETER holds. Shelton also ignored Signal Cleveland’s requests to speak to the director of the Parking Violations Bureau, John Galic, who did not return calls made to his cell phone. His name, along with Operations Manager Patrick Cook, appears on some documents obtained by Signal Cleveland that show changes to drivers’ credit card payments.  

Shelton said Turner’s office had to change drivers’ payments as a “workaround” for an inadequate software management system that allowed drivers paying online to get DETER clearances without paying off the proper number of tickets. 

“When the office began online payments, the computer system functionality did not allow for adequate enforcement,” Shelton said in a statement.

Shelton asserted the payments had to be changed “to prevent a situation where someone who had three or more tickets in judgment … would be able to pay just one of those online and get a DETER block release.”

But the former clerk’s office employees said that explanation does not accurately describe how the ticket management system worked or why the practice continued. 

“The system worked just fine,” one of the former employees said. “It would never let drivers pay just one ticket tied to a DETER block and get their registration back.” 

Signal Cleveland contacted the software vendor that manages the ticket processing in the clerk’s office, a company called Trellint (formerly Conduent). Company representative Lauren Weintraut said in a written response to questions that its system was capable of communicating properly with the BMV. 

“The system has long supported DETER‑related tracking and communication with the BMV,” the statement reads. “Over several decades, there have been updates to both City ordinance and state‑level BMV processes, and as those changed, the Clerk’s office periodically requested corresponding updates to its workflows in the system, which we ensured our system complied with.”

Weintraut said the company always followed the direction of Turner’s office and left the interpretation of the law to the clerk. 

“We defer to the Clerk’s office in describing its operational practices and interpretation of City ordinance,” she wrote.

Records contradict Turner’s explanation of credit card changes

Records obtained by Signal Cleveland also appear to contradict Shelton’s statement that credit card payments were manipulated only to prevent drivers from getting DETER clearances that they were not entitled to. 

In 2018, a Cleveland woman paid $165 by phone on June 5 for three tickets tied to a registration hold. Her payment covered the original tickets plus penalties and fees. Her payment was sufficient to clear her DETER hold and should have triggered an automated notice to the BMV. 

But on the following morning, Turner’s office removed $1 from one of her three tickets tied to the DETER hold, leaving her with an unpaid balance of $1.

Turner’s office then applied that $1 to an unpaid ticket dating back to 2009. That ticket was tied to a different plate in her name but which was not part of her current registration hold.

Signal provided Turner’s office with the specific ticket numbers and documents related to the Cleveland woman’s case to allow it to investigate and respond. Shelton did not directly address the case.

Signal Cleveland also has numerous clerk’s office documents that show the routine movement of $1 from drivers’ credit card payments.

Despite insisting its handling of tickets tied to DETER holds has been proper, Shelton said the office has discontinued the practice of adjusting credit card payments. Shelton said it did so last fall in consultation with the City of Cleveland’s Law Department. 

The change happened after Signal Cleveland began questioning Turner’s office and City Hall about the practice. 

Shelton said the law department currently has no issues with its operations. 

“They told us that the only thing that they had a concern about was the dollar movement,” he said in an interview. “But the fact that we had stopped that, they said that they were satisfied with that. But they felt that our DETER block policy was in accordance with the law.”

Turner’s office also misled drivers paying tickets in person 

Many drivers pay parking tickets tied to their DETER holds in person, at cashier windows either at the clerk’s office on the second floor of the Justice Center downtown or at what is referred to as the one-stop parking bureau on Quigley Road. 

In both places, Turner required cashier clerks to tally every ticket in a driver’s name and insist that would be the cost to remove the DETER hold, even if it included unrelated old or new tickets and traffic camera violations, according to the former employees. 

Shelton said several times that the office “policy” is to tell drivers everything they owe but said that drivers are not forced to pay more than what is due at the time. 

Signal Cleveland visited a cashier clerk’s window outside Turner’s office and asked what tickets need to be paid to remove a DETER hold. The cashier said all tickets in a driver’s name, including traffic camera tickets. When Signal Cleveland said that is not required by law, the cashier clerk responded, “I’m just doing what I’m told.” 

The same message appeared on notices sent to drivers and was detailed on the clerk’s website for years. In both cases, drivers were told they needed to pay all tickets.

The practice of pushing drivers to pay all their tickets when they are trying to remove a DETER hold can be traced back to at least 1999, about three years after Turner became clerk, when a memorandum marked confidential was sent from a supervisor to employees in the Parking Violations Bureau. 

“Effective immediately – when an individual calls or comes to the counter we are required to tell them the total they owe on their plate/and or social security,” the April 20, 1999, memorandum says. “If they are on registration hold and need a release — we need to collect all they owe before the release is given.” 

Internal email instructs managers to push drivers to pay off all unpaid tickets unless they know the law

Cleveland began using traffic cameras to issue tickets in 2005, under then-mayor Jane Campbell. The cameras generated millions of dollars for the city each year, but the practice was unpopular. In 2014, voters approved an amendment to the city charter that banned the use of traffic cameras. But many people still owe fines from those tickets. Turner included those tickets in his policy of trying to collect these debts when people sought to remove a DETER block. 

But Turner’s office seemed aware that the law limits what he could force people to pay to clear DETER holds, according to a 2013 email obtained by Signal Cleveland. 

The supervisor’s email instructed managers to push drivers to pay all their tickets unless a driver cites the law.

“Please review with your staff the policy concerning registration hold. … If the customer is on registration hold we have a policy to collect all money due in order to obtain the release. If the customer tells us that they know the law for registration hold refers only to parking tickets then we can only require the payment of the parking tickets for the release.” 

Turner’s office was questioned about the practice of pressing drivers for traffic camera tickets more than a decade ago. In 2013, East Cleveland journalist Eric Brewer documented Turner’s practice of requiring drivers to pay traffic camera tickets to remove their DETER holds. At the time, Shelton shared the story with several supervisors, an internal email shows. 

But the office remained undeterred.

Asked recently about the longstanding practice to mislead drivers, Shelton said in a statement that “Clerk Turner has not lied to drivers.” 

“The office has not pressed people to pay old traffic camera tickets in order to get DETER block releases,” Shelton reiterated.   

Turner’s office offers payment plans with strings attached

Turner often touts his office’s efforts to help people resolve traffic ticket violations and other issues before the court through his “In the Neighborhood” program. Launched around 2009, it brings the court operations to communities across Cuyahoga County to give people easy access to staff, resources and programs, including parking ticket payment plans to help people restore their registration.

Shelton repeatedly pointed to the payment plan offered by Turner to help drivers remove DETER holds. 

Drivers can immediately get a release if they enroll in a payment plan with a down payment. But again, the office uses the DETER hold as leverage, former clerk’s office employees say. The plan requires drivers to bundle every ticket in their name — including old and new tickets not tied to the hold and traffic camera tickets. The plan pays off the oldest tickets first, meaning if a driver misses a payment, the registration hold is reinstated, said the former employees who handed these plans. 

The former employees said they believed in the principle that drivers need to pay all their debts but that the clerk’s office was wrong to mislead them. 

“It was Turner’s policy to use DETER holds as pressure,” one of the employees said. “Our objections were met with indifference, and the clerks felt powerless to do anything about it.”