CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. — A Georgia man’s driver’s license was suspended this fall for a crime that took place two decades ago in a state he has never even visited.
“I received a letter in the mail the beginning of October, that my license was suspended. That was a surprise,” Justin Jones told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
Even more of a surprise was why: A DUI charge in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Christmas Eve 2005.
“Never been to New Mexico, never driven through New Mexico. I’ve never even stepped foot in the state off a plane,” Jones said.
The high school administrator in Carroll County thought this would be cleared up with a visit to DDS in October.
Instead, he’s been fighting for months to get his license back.
“The burden of proof has been on me to prove that I wasn’t that person that got a DUI 20 years ago in New Mexico,” he said.
First, he provided a stamped and sealed document from the court clerk in New Mexico stating he has no convictions there.
DDS told him that was not good enough, so New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department sent a letter that said:
“This letter certifies that he does not currently have any holds on his driving record within our state. Furthermore, it is essential to clarify that the record under review pertains to a different individual who shares a similar name and date of birth.”
But when Jones brought that to Georgia DDS, they still would not restore his license.
“Me and my wife celebrated before I left the house. When I got back, I was kind of defeated because I was still suspended,” Jones said.
It is now more than two months he has not been legally allowed to drive.
“The first week I was Ubering, but that got expensive pretty quickly,” he said.
DDS tells Channel 2 Action News in a statement, “New Mexico DMV sent the DUI electronically to the DDS and it was added to his record … We contacted NM and requested they submit a negate to correct their error. Once the negate is received from them then the DUI will be removed by DDS.”
“I’m just hoping to get someone who can get to yes, you know? Somebody who has some common sense to say, ‘You know what, this person is not the same person. Let’s lift this suspension,’” Jones said.
Most people can’t tell you where they were on a specific day 20 years ago, but this DUI was the day after Jones’s 21st birthday. He knows he was home from college celebrating, not in New Mexico.
Channel 2 Action News asked DDS if they needed that electronic record change from New Mexico, why did they keep telling Jones to go get those letters.
They did not respond to those follow-up questions.
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