Man Jailed Over 50-Cent Toll

Mass. Resident Considering Lawsuit

POSTED: 6:49 am EDT September 14, 2007
UPDATED: 4:22 pm EDT September 14, 2007

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- A Massachusetts man who insists his New Hampshire highway tokens are still valid just spent three days in jail because he insisted on using two tokens to pay a 50-cent toll.

Thomas Jensen, 68, of Braintree, said the state broke a contract with him and everyone else who bought tokens by refusing to accept them after January of last year. He was convicted of theft of services for continuing to use tokens after they were phased out.
??I gave the state of New Hampshire money for the tokens, and I expect to be able to use them,?? Jensen told The Patriot Ledger.

Jensen was driving to his New Hampshire summer home when he tried to pay the 50-cent toll with tokens, as he had always done. The toll worker refused to take them and a state trooper at the plaza gave Jensen a citation.

??(The trooper) said, ?Just give him the 50 cents.? I said, ?I did, I gave him two tokens,??? Jensen told the newspaper.

Monday, a judge told Jensen he could pay a $150 fine, do community service or go to jail for three days. He choose jail.

??Over my dead body was I going to give the state another dollar for the tolls,?? Jensen said.

He told the newspaper that the jail was a clean, new facility and that the food was better than expected. He said he spent his time in jail talking with other inmates.

Jensen never told his wife he was in jail. Beverly Jensen said she only found out when asked by a television news reporter.

After being set free Thursday, Jensen said he\'s considering a lawsuit. He said the state should just accept tokens until they\'re all used up.

??I just get offended by people trying to do me wrong,?? he said. ??They stole the value of these tokens from me.??

righteous.

f nh. //

No offense (because I understand where the guy is coming from), but if it were me, I\'d pay the $150 rather than do jail time and have that on my record.  But that\'s just me.

And an arrest/jail record can screw up your future.

I understand his issue as I live in a state where there\'s a toll in pretty much every county, but I\'d rather pay the fine that spend time in jail - but that would only be my decision.

this guy is an idiot, all he had to do to avoid this mess was give the guy 2 quarters rather than 2 tokens. but he refused. and he could have just paid the $150 fine, that he can obviosly afford having a summer home in nh and all.  just trying to keep yahoo tourists like this guy out of the state.

for the record, NH is the ****

He is 68 years old I don\'t think he cares about it going on his permanent record.

He might not be able to get that job as the starter at his local public golf course.  It\'s off to Walmart to become a greeter.  Shoulda just paid the fine you old dope!!

this guy is an idiot, all he had to do to avoid this mess was give the guy 2 quarters rather than 2 tokens. but he refused. and he could have just paid the $150 fine, that he can obviosly afford having a summer home in nh and all.  just trying to keep yahoo tourists like this guy out of the state.

for the record, NH is the ****

You\'re missing the point.  He paid for tokens.  He should have a right to use them... unless NH offered to buy back unused tokens when they decided to phase them out?  

ROCHESTER ? Toll evader Thomas Jensen took the defense stand Friday asserting his innocence and the state\'s guilt for blocking his use of tokens after they expired.

He maintained he had a contract with the state, which was "morally and legally obligated to continue accepting" the tokens after he paid for them. He questioned a state trooper and attendants from the Spaulding Turnpike\'s Rochester toll plaza, where the case originated on the afternoon of March 23, 2006.

He also said the state had a chance to "start reversing" its descent into the moral "abyss" that came around the time the Old Man on the Mountain crumbled to the ground four years ago.

But it was to no avail.

Jensen, 68, was found guilty of a single charge of theft of services, a Class B misdemeanor, for insisting tokens would suffice despite the state no longer accepting them as of January 2006.

He admitted he knew the state was no longer accepting tokens, but could not recall if he purchased his rolls before or after the state stopped selling them six months earlier in preparation of E-ZPass.

Rochester District Court Judge Susan Ashley endorsed Trooper First Class James Downey\'s recommendation that Jensen pay a much lighter fine, one usually assessed for violations and toll evaders.

Downey said he was unable to initially charge Jensen, a retired IBM employee, with toll evasion because of a loophole in state law that was later rectified by the Legislature.

Jensen had his own idea of justice, promising not to use tokens in exchange for receiving credit for his unused tokens to his Massachusetts-based FAST LANE account, among other conditions.

The judge, having already ordered court security to remove Jensen\'s active cell phone from the courtroom, wasn\'t having it.

She assessed a $150 fine, including the penalty assessment.

Jensen said the case was about principle, not paying a fine.

Even before the trial got underway, Jensen vowed to bring a civil or class-action lawsuit against the state for breaking the contract and violating his rights.

"It will not end here," he said, fiddling with a roll of tokens.

One attorney asked to assess Jensen\'s prospects in a civil case said there was little chance for success.

"It would be difficult to advance that argument that there was a contract, particularly one that lasted forever," said city attorney Dan Wensley. "That state took what was designed to provide adequate notice that the ... tokens being honored were going to have a specific time limit in which you had to present them, and having known that the state probably satisfied whatever obligation it had."

Jensen, who lives in Braintree, Mass. but has a rarely-used lakeside home in Ossipee, kept the court in session for about 1 1/2 hours, more than once striking the ire of the judge.

Despite the verdict being handed down, Jansen was still asking the judge questions as she exited the courtroom.

When he insisted earlier the court hear testimony on how tokens are a form of gift certificates, the judge sternly said: "This is not a gift certificate case. This is irrelevant ... I will not hear further testimony on the issue."

Jensen maintained tokens are a form of gift certificate because he paid for something and, in return, was promised services without an expiration date

Toll Attendant Kimon Lalas, on his day off, recalled how he yelled for a northbound Jensen to pay acceptable fare.

"He insisted he pay in tokens," he said.

Jensen, who was driving a Chevy Blazer, said the two tokens ? the pre-E-ZPass accepted amount at a 50-cent toll ? "would have fulfilled the requirements."

But they were no longer accepted, he was told.

"But I did give you two tokens," he said.

"Other than validity of the tokens I did meet the requirements," he later said.

Jensen questioned Omer Ouellette, another attendant, if his purchase of tokens constituted a contract, one that lasts "in perpetuity."

"It\'s a sale. I don\'t know about a contract," said Ouellette, who went back to work after the trial.

Downey, the trooper, addressed the contract question this way: "If they\'re not signed they\'re not worth the paper they\'re written on. ... If I go and buy a candy bar at the store, I don\'t have a contract with that store."

Only if the state went bankrupt would the contract be invalidated, Jensen said.

Bill Boynton, spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said the Attorney General\'s office said the tokens "were a defined discount program with a defined end date" dependent on changes to law.

Jensen appeared prepared for his court date. But he left room for improvisation, at one point asking a reporter if he wanted to take the stand and share his "thoughts and opinions" about the state\'s move away from tokens.

A tall man who described himself as honest after working all his life, Jensen dressed in a blue suit and displayed a gentlemanly demeanor. He repeatedly apologized for being hard of hearing and even invited one of the toll attendants, while under oath, out for coffee after the proceedings.

Downey wouldn\'t call the proceedings bizarre. "It was different," he said. "I\'ve never had it before. I don\'t anticipate having it again."

Boynton said other turnpike users have made arguments similar to Jensen\'s, "but I don\'t remember it getting this far."

Jensen didn\'t say if he used cash, coins or his FAST LANE transponder to get through the tolls on his way to court. But he did say he didn\'t use tokens.

So then by your definition, if I went to a carnival and bought 20 tickets for rides and only used 15, I should be able to get a refund for the 5 tickets?  Doesn\'t happen, and no one complaigns about it.  The bottom line is that in principle, the guy is right, but for $0.50, he took it way too far in my opinion.