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A report that was published this week states that the city of New Orleans is is owed over $135 million in unpaid traffic camera ticket fees.
That amount is made up of 994,323 traffic tickets that have gone uncollected since 2010.
One of the biggest and more notable offenders on the list of people who still haven’t paid their traffic ticket fines, according to Fox 8 News is former New Orleans Saints linebacker Junior Galette.
Galette, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, played in the NFL from 2010 to 2017 for the Saints and Washington Redskins.
Fox 8 News reports that Galette racked up, as of February 2024, “at least 113 tickets worth $22,395” that he still owes the city of New Orleans.
When reached for comment, Fox 8 News says he “provided no records and threatened to sue.”
New Orleans’ Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano claims that the city has difficulty collecting on traffic camera tickets because they rely only on booting the offending vehicles and sending the ticket recipients to collections. He claims that if the offenders can avoid those two things there isn’t much more they can do.
“I can’t anticipate money coming from these people that have chosen a whole different path in life and in their financial world,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever see that money and that’s called a sunk cost.”
In New Orleans, according to a Fox 8 News analysis of city records, only 63 percent of the traffic tickets issued from 2019 to 2023 have been paid.
So former Saints player Junior Galette is far from the only offender to not pay his traffic tickets.
One couple in the city owes more than $116,000 for 700 traffic tickets. Another couple owes more than $85,000 on almost 390 tickets.
When asked why anyone would ever pay for their traffic fine with these people seemingly getting away with not doing so, Montano replied, “I think a normal, I would hope, rational person … does not want to have a creditor after them. I think it’s a certain type of mindset or decision you have to have not to care.”