A well-to-do Orange County parking hog was arrested on Friday after using fake disabled placards on his cars to turn an apartment complex into his own private garage for his elite fleet.
Six different placards were seized after the suspect used those to store his high-end cars in Irvine.
He owned or had access to five Mercedes and three BMWs, according to pictures of his key fobs that were seized by police.
“We recently got a tip that a man was using disabled placards to store his cars in disabled parking spaces at an apartment community.
“Traffic Detectives investigated and determined six cars had bogus placards,” the Irvine Police Department posted on Instagram.
“There is zero excuse for placard abuse, and those taking advantage of the system can expect strict enforcement.”
Pictures released by police show the fake placards on a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and a BMW vehicle.
Many were stunned by the man would embark on such a scam when he appeared to have the money to own about $1 million in luxury European cars.
”If he owns five Benzes and two beamers he can afford a parking space or ten,” one commented.
Another user commented on the post “Interesting. I’ve been noticing a lot of cars in apartments using out of state handicap placards recently and thought that was weird/out of ordinary,”.
“Likely running a car rental business and thought free parking opportunity,” another person added on.
The suspect will likely face charges such as a misuse of disabled placards, which can be considered a misdemeanor punishable by fines up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.
During enforcement efforts pushed by the DMV back in 2018, investigators in 20 different operations found about 8% of drivers using disabled placards fraudulently. Drivers in Pomona and Stockton also had the highest citation rates at 20% or higher.
