Alcohol Education Classes (teacher ripped me off, had to repeat): $1500
Alcohol Education Classes Round 2: $1500
Lawyer #2 to Fight Class #1: $4000
Lawyer #3 to Fight Class #1: $2000
Alcohol Therapy: $2400
Probation Discharge Fee: $100
License Reinstatement Application: $95
Driving Permit Application: $50
Driver License Application: $50
Ignition Interlock Installation: $100
Ignition Interlock Lease: $2400
Job opportunity lost: VP of Engineering at mid size software startup. Required short notice international travel. Denied by probation. Would've been a 500% boost in salary for me.
You are required to present a pay stub each month to your probation officer. You can not black out the payment amounts (I tried). In effect, these case managers know exactly how much money you make and what your expenses are (intake questionnaire). They knew I had a good amount of disposable income and used that to their advantage.
The money isn't even the worst of it. A buddy of mine is currently on probation for the same charge (low BAC DWAI) in Colorado. He's 24 and has been diagnosed with 2 distinct cancers. Probation denied medical marijuana use but allows him to take prescribed opiates. Well, the prescriptions ran out and heroin is cheaper than Vicodin. Guess what? He buys heroin now and has the prescription on file to ignore the results of opiate metabolites in his urine.
My girlfriend is also currently on probation for the same charge (low BAC DWAI). She's supposed to start University in September (Vet. Tech. program at a great school). The case managers are intentionally making it very difficult for her to be able to attend. She's seriously considering postponing her education for 24 months. That's the real crime.
Do you see a pattern here? Mid 20-somethings being targeted.
DWAI in Colorado = BAC 0.02
DUI per-se in Colorado = BAC 0.04
DUI in Colorado = BAC 0.08
Even 1 drink and they can arrest you. DWAI carries virtually the same penalties as a DUI ($500-$1000 difference in fine).
Ugh! I hated to upvote for all those expenses, but that was a great documentation of the actual costs involved. The real eye-opener for everyone should be that sadly the majority of those costs are collateral consequences that are added on so that various for-profit companies can all get a little piece of the pie.
Ignition interlock is the biggest scam of a for-profit company I have ever seen. My ex-fiance had to get one in Florida. The place to have it installed was about 50 miles from our house. They told her she had to drive the car there herself and present her valid driver's license to get it installed. Not really thinking about it, I drove her over there. They were about to turn her away because she wasn't driving, yet her probation condition says she can't drive without one installed. They did overlook it after some pleading, but then asked for her driver's license. All she had was a state ID card because she couldn't get a valid driver's license until she had the interlock installed. She ended up never getting it installed. Funny story though, we moved to a different state a few months later and the court order for the interlock didn't follow her. She was able to get a driver's license free and clear. Ironically, when we broke up she moved back to Florida and because she had a valid driver's license from another state she walked right in and got a Florida driver's license.
But I would say the worse part for you was the job loss. While the expenses are high, losing a job is a much greater loss in my opinion. I don't understand the travel portion for some non-violent felonies. I had a similar clause, ended up costing me a couple thousand in attorney fees to get them to let me travel to a different county in the same state for an overnight work meeting. It is completely out of hand in my opinion.
Two things strike me here. First is that the effective cost to you was over ten times the amount that the judge (or whoever) thought was sufficient to serve "justice". That's fucking insane.
Second is that the people in charge treated you like a hard core alcoholic. Without knowing anything else about you I'm going to guess that's not the case. Regardless of motivation -- although profit is a safe bet -- it's stupid in the truest self-destructive sense for society to automatically treat you like this for [edit: a drink or two].
Edit: I'm getting my BAC numbers mixed up, but it doesn't really matter. I see that in our state 0.02 is DWAI for <21 years of age. It's like we're looking for ways to fuck up peoples lives.
