Drivers say they paid Miami traffic fines. Why did notices say they still owed money?

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A Miami-Dade court clerk who is supposed to help people as they pay their traffic tickets and help set up payment plans if they need one instead helped himself to $4,000 to $5,000 in fine payments, prosecutors say.

Scott Kessler, a 57-year-old Hollywood man who has been working for Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Courts for 11 1/2 years, has been charged with grand theft, official misconduct and conspiracy to commit an organized scheme to defraud. Kessler was arrested May 11 and released after posing $15,000 bond the next day.

“When government employees steal, they not only seize the public’s money, but they squander the public’s trust in their local government,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. “Such actions betray our community and can never be accepted or tolerated.”

Investigators and the state attorney’s office say people found out they were being ripped off by mail.

READ MORE: A Miramar woman has been missing for a month. Her family wants your help

A notice from the clerk of courts

Five people showed up at the North Dade Justice Center, 15555 Biscayne Blvd., after getting letters from the Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court that they still owed money for traffic fines. The letters confused them, an arrest report says, because they knew their fines had been paid. In fact, they told clerk’s office investigators, they had paid them in cash to a man at the North Dade Justic Center who investigators identified as Kessler.

Kessler put one of the five on a payment plan, which came as a surprise to her. She told investigators she hadn’t seen the paperwork with her name on it and her name was a forgery.

An arrest report says Miami-Dade police Detective Aura Jaen-Rosello began putting Kessler on video on March 6. By the time the detective was done on April 26, the report said Kessler was caught 25 times “surreptitiously concealing cash he collected from patrons” on his body. Sometimes, the report says, Kessler took the case from the secured cash drawer at his work station; other times, he left the money on his desk and then took it.

The report details an undercover operation that didn’t catch Kessler doing anything wrong with the first undercover detective who gave him $293. But the second undercover detective didn’t get a receipt for her $293 paid. And after seeing Kessler fold a piece of paper and put it in his right front pocket, Detectives Dennis Delgado and Mario Perez Jr. strolled over to Kessler’s desk, walked him into an office and arrested him.

“I messed up,” the report says Kessler admitted.

The piece of paper was a payment plan stating the second undercover had paid $193 and owed $100 plus $25 in fees. It was signed by Kessler, but the place where the undercover’s signature should’ve been was blank. Also, the report said, Kessler had two $50 bills.

They had the same serial numbers as two $50 bills given to him by the second undercover.

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