A former San Diego County Deputy District Attorney will pay $1500, spend years on probation and do hundreds of hours of community service as a penalty for fixing a $142 seatbelt ticket.
Allison Worden was cited at a “Click It or Ticket” checkpoint on May 28, 2011. Soon after, she called her friend Sgt. Kevin Friedman, at the San Diego Police Traffic Division.
According to investigators, Friedman found the tickets in the division’s citation bin and got rid of them. He retired from the SDPD and pleaded no contest to one count of destroyed a traffic citation.
Worden resigned from her job at the DA”s office and on Friday she was sentenced to three years of probation, a $1500 fine and 200 hours of community service.
Worden, who also goes by her married name Allison Debow, will also have to report to the women’s jail for one day of custody on March 17.
She was not present in court at the time of sentencing on the three misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and alteration or destruction of a traffic citation.
Mike Murphy Deputy Attorney General said the case was disheartening but proves even officials will be prosecutors for breaking the law.
“Obviously a case like this where a person conspires to undermine, obstruct justice the very system we’re working in, that’s problematic and it’s a direct betrayal of all of those responsibilities,” Murphy said.
Last year, Friedman was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, two years of probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine.
Defense attorney Paul Pfingst said she still maintains that she told the officer not to do anything about the ticket.
"The jury disbelieved her, she will have to live with that but it does not change her position," Pfingst said.
If Worden would’ve have simply paid the ticket, it would have cost a minimum of $142 under the California “Click It or Ticket” program.