California Cracks down on HotRodders & KitCars, Boyd Coddinton's shop raided Options

[seanery]

Hands Up!
The State of California Targets Street Rod Owners for Potential Fraud
By Brian Brennan
Story Link
(IMG:http://streetrodderweb.com/hotnews/0410sr_boyds_z.jpg)

On Wednesday the 6th of October, 22 law enforcement agents and other individuals from the State of California, Department of Justice Fraud Division, Department of Motor Vehicles, California Highway Patrol, Department of Automotive Repair and others arrived with guns drawn and flak vests on at the shop of Boyd Coddington Hot Rods & Collectibles (La Habra, California).

No, this wasn't the making of an episode of American Hotrod but rather a bona fide attempt to serve a warrant issued and carried out by duly vested officers for the purpose of investigating Boyd Coddington on the suspicion of fraud. The alleged fraud charges stemmed from an ongoing investigation by the State of California that has for the past several years been limited to the kit car industry but has now been expanded to the street rod industry. The State of California is looking for cars that meet one or more of the following criteria that would lead to registration or license fee fraud.

Street Rodder has learned via e-mail communications with Robert Morgester, the Deputy Attorney General Special Crimes Unit for the State of California Department of Justice, "The California Attorney General's Office has been conducting an investigation into the fraudulent registration of replica vehicles. The initial investigation was limited to Cobra replica vehicles due to known VIN sequences. We are aware that the same fraudulent vehicle registration issues apply to other replica vehicles and hot rods.
To correct a common misunderstanding of California law, it is a felony to do the following:
1. Register a vehicle where the year of vehicle is misrepresented;
2. Register a vehicle where the value of the vehicle is understated; or
3. Register a vehicle where the year of the vehicle is misrepresented to avoid compliance with California smog laws.

Any of the above actions are a felony in violation of Vehicle Code Section 4463(a). Additionally, the above actions constitute the crime of perjury, in that all statement of facts contained in California DMV documents are taken under penalty of perjury."

In speaking with Boyd Coddington he told SRM that the State of California seized certain company records for further investigation. Boyd also told SRM that three license plates were removed from vehicles within his consignment shop. These vehicles were built decades ago by the likes of Fat Jack and Pete & Jake's. Apparently the state of California is looking into any improprieties that would lead to the state being "shorted" tax or registration dollars.

Boyd also told SRM that he had to show records proving such vehicles as the Whatthehey and the Alumatub were legally registered and taxed, which they were. He also had to show records on two of his Boydster's that were built and given away as to how they were registered and how were the vehicle's values determined and did the new owners pay the appropriate taxes. At the time of this writing it appears Boyd's business has done everything according to the law but that SRM has been told the investigations will not stop with his shop. Boyd was singled out because of his "visibility" on the television show American Hot Rod and that other California builders would soon be paid a visit.

Additionally, SRM learned that law enforcement officials, it is believed were California Highway Patrol, recently visited the Labor Day Cruise, held annually in Costa Mesa at the fairgrounds, looking for "suspicious" vehicles. When asked what constituted a "suspicious vehicle" it was determined that any fiberglass car is suspect.

Again, according to the Office of the Attorney General from the State of California, its Department of Justice, "To date, the ongoing investigation has identified at least five other out-of-state companies that have provided fraudulent vehicle purchase agreements and titles to California vehicle owners. The companies are in Alabama, Nevada, New York and Florida. The Attorney General's Office believes as many as 70,000 vehicles have been illegally registered in California through these scam operations.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is in the process of canceling registrations that involve documents obtained from Titles Unlimited. (Titles Unlimited is believed to have provided false documents to Californians that cost the state more than $1 million in tax revenues and license fees over the past two years, and as much as $14 million since 1975, when the company began operating.) The Attorney General's Office also has notified law enforcement officials in more than 20 counties regarding residents who titled their cars through the company for possible prosecution."

Attorney General Bill Lockyer of the State of California tells us that an Alabama man was convicted on felony charges for issuing false vehicle titles in a scam that has cost the State of California millions of dollars in lost tax revenues and license fees.

"This illegal operation provided false information regarding the purchase of expensive vehicles to hundreds of Californians, which allowed them to avoid smog requirements and pay reduced sales taxes and vehicle registration fees," Lockyer said. "At a time when California and its residents are forced to confront painful budget choices, these scam artists defrauded the state and all law-abiding taxpayers who have done their part to get through our economic slump. We will continue to investigate to ensure these tax cheats are brought to justice."

Street Rodder has contacted SEMA and they are immediately investigating to see what options rodders have, especially the thousands of rodders who have operated in good faith for decades and have done nothing to raise the suspicion of the state. To all street rodders this is the single most important subject to be addressed by our industry in all the years that any of the staff members can recall. Stay in touch with Street Rodder: we are on top of his developing story and will bring www.streetrodderweb.com readers more information as we get it.

[URY914]

They should arrest him for those shirts he wears. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

And they needed the flak vests for that ex-wife of his that runs the office. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol2.gif)

Paul

[aircooledboy]

Sheeeesh.

Great use of tax dollars baby. The good news is that the investigation will probably cost 25 million, and recover 3 million. But damnit, those evil car freaks will be scared to death. MOOOOHOOOOWHAAAAA!!!

[tdgray]

Way to Go CA !

Another liberal wacko solution to a insignificant problem. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

GOOD JOB (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)

[Rhodes71/914]

On Wednesday the 6th of October, 22 law enforcement agents and other individuals from the State of California, Department of Justice Fraud Division, Department of Motor Vehicles, California Highway Patrol, Department of Automotive Repair and others arrived with guns drawn and flak vests on at the shop of Boyd Coddington Hot Rods & Collectibles (La Habra, California).

Aren't there some real criminal to harass.

I just love govt. agencies and cops, its great when the get together and do worthwhile work (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[dflesburg]

I hate hippies!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ar15.gif)

[Rhodes71/914]

I hate hippies!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ar15.gif)

Please explain, enlighten me.

[dmenche914]

there would be more complience with the laws, if the laws were deemed fair, they are not fair in California, and like any oppressed people, we are fighting back, recall the revolution, the boston tea party?

California charges a ton of money in car taxes every year, making it very expensive to maintian hobby cars. The smog regulations, whith they recently made worse, are stupid at best, with the equipment inspection and such for older cars, when you can burn a smokey wood fire all year long, yet you dinged for a hobby car that burns clean, and is driven few miles Smog tests are also very expensive, and laws that prevent the smog station from making ANY adjustment to bring your car in line with smog limits are a pain int he ass, you have to leave make the adjustment, and come back for a retest (at added cost0 This rule applies to test only statons.

Bad laws produce law breakers, more power to them. If the god damn state government could control it s spending, maybe they wouldn't be taking it out on car owners, but thats anougher issue.

screw the government

[dinomium]

Who is the gobunator of that state? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

[Lou W]

Posted on Oct 20 2004, 10:16 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
there would be more complience with the laws, if the laws were deemed fair, they are not fair in California, and like any oppressed people, we are fighting back, recall the revolution, the boston tea party?

California charges a ton of money in car taxes every year, making it very expensive to maintian hobby cars. The smog regulations, whith they recently made worse, are stupid at best, with the equipment inspection and such for older cars, when you can burn a smokey wood fire all year long, yet you dinged for a hobby car that burns clean, and is driven few miles Smog tests are also very expensive, and laws that prevent the smog station from making ANY adjustment to bring your car in line with smog limits are a pain int he ass, you have to leave make the adjustment, and come back for a retest (at added cost0 This rule applies to test only statons.

Bad laws produce law breakers, more power to them. If the god damn state government could control it s spending, maybe they wouldn't be taking it out on car owners, but thats anougher issue.

screw the government

Good Point (IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

[eeyore]

Yeah...

Maybe SEMA should propose & back a bill to severely regulate wood burning fireplaces. That should give the Sierra Club and Earth Firsters a taste of their own medicine.

Note that the majority of the statements cover lost revenue, under the guise of environmental protection.

[rhodyguy]

a bit aside... i'd be one angry prick if i worked in that shop. the shop manager and i would be squaring off. right after i got done knocking the shit out of that fat little fucker with the mouth, blueberry? then i would get some of my zippo fluid, squirt some on bolyd's hula shirt and light him on fire. perhaps it's all for the cameras. i think i've watched it twice. back on point, i should think the authorities would better serve the public, hanging the energy thieves.

kevin

[andys]

It's all about the State losing out on fees and taxes. They will go after that so as to set example. From this, funds and enforcement are diverted away from otherwise better suited needs........They don't make money on chasing criminals.

I took my old Toyota truck in for a smog inspection. All the numbers were very very good (even got comment from guys running the test), but failed visual for timing being 10* BTDC, rather than spec 5* BTDC. I re-set the timing; they re-run the test; all the numbers were higher but in spec....but it just HAD to be set to 5* BTDC to be a *non-polluter*!

Andy

[Sammy]

Uhhhhh, it isn't the state, it is the tree hugging bleeding heart liberal environmentalist lobbies that are forcing the issue. They spend lots o' money getting certain lawmakers elected so they can pass laws that reflect the special interest's interests.
That is why new cars cost so much, why smog laws cost so much, why gasoline costs so much and why the government always goes after cars.

California has waaaaay too many tree huggers, any other states want some? We'd be glad to send em your way.

[lapuwali]

California charges a ton of money in car taxes every year, making it very expensive to maintian hobby cars.

I don't know about a "ton". I just got the annual "car tax" (aka license fees) for my '63 Mini, and it's $51. This is strictly a "hobby car", and I think less than $5/mo can't reasonably be considered "a ton". As I recall, the license fee for my 914 was roughly $100, or about $9/mo. Considering maintenance and other bits for the car run $1000-2000 per year, $50-100 is a drop in a pretty large bucket. Going out of your way to avoid such taxes seems just as petty as the authorities raiding someone suspected of doing it.

[dmenche914]

yes older cars are cheaper to register than new cars, but my old car went from about $36 / yr to $50+/yr recently, I have ten cars, i am not rich, it is just my hobby, the $50/yr per car is $500/yr total, thats after tax money that i fork out, several days to weeks take home pay all going to car registration. it is a ton of money to me.
Smog tests take my time, time is money, the smog tests also cost a lot, the state has now required expensive dyno tests in many areas, further increasing the cost, gone are the $20 smog check plus $8 for state certificate, which is hardly suitable for framing, it is a computer print, that is until they went paperless, so why the fee now days????

The state sees cars a money source. (part right, the 914 can be a money pit) There are plans by some politicians to raise the car tax even more. What they do is spend spend spend (so much for that cut cut cut arnold bastard) they build up a huge debt, and then tell us they need to raise taxes for the children, or some crap like that, all the while they spend on pork, fancy pension funds (which most civilian workers never have), but when they ask for money it is always for some special heart wrenching thing.

The people are to blame also. 1. they elect the bad politicians, and 2. every time the people vote, there is several bond issues, which almost always pass, now we are asked to vote on:
prop. 61, a $1.5 billion bond for children hospitals, cost of this bond is about $50 per person, but since most do not pay taxes directly (ie children, low income, illegals, etc...) the true cost for a taxper or family is much higher, maybe $100-$200 for a worker to pay. (funny hospitals are going broke in south california because of illegals using "free" medical service, yet the politicains will not crack down on them, it is their right to free medical care, at my expense. )

Prop 63 a tax on millionaires will collect $800 million per year. this also effect small bussiness. the money is to be spent on metal heath care! Thats right grab money to spend on lonnies, hell just put a fence around the whole state and declare it insane!

Prop. 67 a $500 million tax on cell phone use for emergancy medical services, (see above on illegals using free emergency care)

Prop 71 will fund stem cell research, cost is $6 BILLION which is about $200 per person, but much higher per tax payer. Stem cell reasearch may be a good charity, however dammit, I want to choose what charity I give too. Money stolen from me for stem cell research might be better spent by me with a donation to the Lung Association, or cancer research or what ever.

The problem is california will likley pass all these bonds. The majority of voters have decided to spend spend spend, we are at the point where we either have more voters on the take than not, so bonds always pass, and we are forced into tough choices because politicians screw things up, so that we believe we must spend to fix the problem. I am afraid it is too late to save the state, we have reached the critical mass of more in the government hand out line, that in the productive citizen catagory, so the votes go with the hand out party line, and we get further in debt.

At local levels it is the same. Government at city levels make sweet deals with developers to over build, that impacts traffic, water supplies and such, the traffic gets so bad because of these new developements that the people are all but forced to vote for road bonds. Does anyone ever plan ahead, ask the developer to take on the full cost? NO.

My city is obsesed with water rationing, we are asked to fillout a form, number of people in the house, square feet of lawm, gardens, and told we must conserve, the city is even giving away "free" low flush toilets to citizens. That's just great, I pay for some thing someone else shits on!

Now the same city council votes to triple the building hieght limit, and wants to build a 2000 unit set of a dozen 21 story skyscrapers. But wait we are out of water, no problem the city will require rationing, on me, and they are raising water rates, and installing recycled sewer water pipes to water public areas throughout the city (at great cost) So again an example of a crisis made by the city, which the city will solve by taxing me more. Not to mention the estimated 14,000 new car trips each day (estimated) this developement will bring us, let us see if once it is built if the city asks for a bond to pay for new roads, traffic lights etc...

Government at many levels has lost sight of who they need to serve, they cannot lead, thay are corrupt. At least we got 5000 signatures to put the skycraper project on the ballot (overriding the city councils vote) The developer is spending huge bucks on advertising, and city council members are mail ads for it, but hopefully it will not pass.

Government SUCKS.

Gawd, you got me going here.

[Root_Werks]

A few years back, WA had car taxes on tabs reflective of the year/value of the car. So most new cars were $250-500 anually for tabs. Then an init. passed making all tabs $30. Since I owned all old rusty cars. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) All my tabs went up! I use to pay like $24 a year, now it is like $85 a year. Go figure. At least for now, we don't have to worry so much about the smog law things like CA does. But give it another 20 years. <_<

[lapuwali]

$50 per car per year is hardly out of line. It's not much more than most states charge (indeed, I recall paying more in Missouri when I lived there 10 years ago, and that ignores 10 years of inflation). The license fees pay for a good number of things, not just paying for the actual license itself. This is commonly done in a great many states. Yes, it's a tax, but not a particularly burdensome one for most people. Owning 10 cars you keep licensed and insured and then complaining about $50 ea. per year for the license (what does the insurance run?) puts you pretty far out of the mainstream. Whether you like it or not, taxes are a necessary evil. If you want to opt out of all of the services paid for by those taxes, I suggest you go buy an island and live on it.

I'm not even going to go into all that other irrelevant stuff, nor am I going to try to explain how bonds work.

[dmenche914]

Collector car insurance right now is running about $70-80 per year per car for me, so the car tax is still a big bite comparable with the insurance rate.

What is bad is part of the "fee' is not tax deducatble.

The state just wastes money, and takes it any way possible from citizens.

The biggest gripe is the smog testing, the costs envolved, and days wasted getting it done. Real pain in the ass. Lucky most of my cars are old enough to be exempt (maybe not for long) If they go ahead and start requiring smog tests on the classics, test every two years, i can look forward to having to get a smog test a little more often then every three months, boy, that will be lots of fun.

maybe you are rich, but $500 is $500 and that's a lot of money to me. It is even worse when you know the money is wasted by the state with big fat giveaways to nonproductive bums, illegals, funding of crazy laws, rich pension schemes for state employees, and buracratic waste.

Five trips to either DMV or the CHP to get one of my cars registered for the first time, waiting in lines, easy three productive days of my life wasted so I could get a stupid tag on my car. (lucky this car was old enough to not require smog) (and pay those dumb assed DMV employees)

Anyone who thinks I should put up with this crap is out of their bleeping head.

This crap hurts productivity, takes money from me that i would have otherwised spent on 914 parts. (are the parts vendors listening? they should care, for if taxes get so high, We can no longer patronize them, then they go out of bussiness.)

Your arguemnt that i shouldn't complain about $50, cause my insurance is more is not very good, hell If it does not bother you, I will gladly have you pay my registratin fees, seeing as you think $50 is no big deal.

Taxes are like death by a thousand strings, a little here, and little there.

i would sure love to have you explain to me "how bonds work" I am so dumb I do not get it, i thought that bonds were basically taxation without representation. There is no way that taxpayers that are not even born yet should have to pay a bond back that was voted on thirty years before. Talk about screwing your kids with debt.

The millionaires that are getting taxed are not farly represented either, as people whom will never have to pay that tax are forcing it on them. Kind of like the area wide vote we had to rais ebridge tolls, it passed, but I'd wager those that need to cross the bridge every day voted no. Hell 200 days a year commuting , $1 increase, is $200/year after tax taken from these commuters. They got screwed by "mob rules style democracy" no protection agianst this. Would not be bad if the money was for bridge repairs and such, but the money is for busses, ferrys, and trains, things the bridge commuters do not use, things that are not profit making, not even break even operations.

Be wary of total democracy, for the mob will take the rights of the minority, . The bridge tax should have been voted on only by those that drive the bridges, and pay the tax. (I am not by the way a bridge user, no personnel interst in the bridge tolls other that believng it is unjust, and illegal.

Awaiting enlightenment on bonds!!!!

[Red-Beard]

Uhhhhh, it isn't the state, it is the tree hugging bleeding heart liberal environmentalist lobbies that are forcing the issue. They spend lots o' money getting certain lawmakers elected so they can pass laws that reflect the special interest's interests.
That is why new cars cost so much, why smog laws cost so much, why gasoline costs so much and why the government always goes after cars.

California has waaaaay too many tree huggers, any other states want some? We'd be glad to send em your way.

No thanks, we've got heat, humidity and fire ants. YOU get to keep the tree huggers.