Port Authority PD: Trucker tries to avoid GWB tolls with license plate stolen during Sandy

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A tractor-trailer driver put a license plate stolen during Hurricane Sandy on the front of his rig, while keeping the real plate inside, to try and avoid paying E-ZPass toll on the George Washington Bridge, Port Authority police said this morning.

Photo Credit: *Courtesy PORT AUTHORITY PD*

Jerry DeMarco

11/09/2013 4:18 p.m.

Officer Jason Malice noticed that the 2006 Freightliner tractor-trailer didn’t have an emissions sticker displayed as it rolled up to the toll plaza late yesterday afternoon.

After stopping the vehicle, he ran a check and found that the license plate had been reported stolen in August by New Jersey-based Marine Company, the authority’s Joseph Pentangelo told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Marine Company officials “believe the plate had been removed from the trailer during Hurricane Sandy” and had a stack of E-ZPass violations “beginning this summer,” Pentangelo said.

The driver, who owns the rig, “made statements indicating he knew the plate was not his,” he added.

The vehicle was impounded and the driver — identified as 43-year-old Yuriy Ganzman of Avon, CT — was charged with theft of services, theft and possession of stolen property, Pentangelo said.

PHOTO: Courtesy PORT AUTHORITY PD

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