Michigan man pays parking ticket in pennies, knocked out by security
Imagine you aren’t happy about a parking ticket, and when you find out you must pay a $1.75 fee to settle it with a debit card, you’re twice as grumpy. Then you come up with a great idea: pay the ticket with a pile of pennies so the bureaucratic jerks have to sit there and count all the coins.
This is exactly what Anthony Sevy did in Royal Oak, Michigan. But his symbolic protest led to an altercation that ended with a security guard slamming him to the ground so hard he defecated on himself. Eight years later, Sevy is still fighting for justice.
Royal Oak is a comparatively posh suburb in the greater Detroit metropolitan area. I live in Detroit and know Royal Oak is notoriously strict about parking tickets. But this story takes “strict” to a whole new level.
How the 2017 parking ticket pennies incident went down
This incident happened in the Royal Oak courthouse. When the clerk told Sevy they wouldn’t let him pay with pennies, the two got into a heated verbal exchange. Eventually, Court Officers Philip Barach and Harold Marshall arrived and asked Sevy to leave the premises.
Security camera footage shows Sevy walking away toward the exit when Barach grabbed him from behind. He began to choke the man, then pulled him to the ground hard enough to knock him out. Sevy later accepted a plea deal, though his lawyer claims he did so “out of fear and threat from the court system.”
“I don’t think anyone paying in penny rolls, whether it’s a preferred thing to do for a court clerk, warrants this type of this assaultive behavior and violation of constitutional rights.”
— Jonathan Marko, representing Anthony Sevy
Sevy and his lawyer (Jonathan Marko) argued his First Amendment rights to a symbolic protest were violated, and his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the court officers went outside their jurisdiction, wrestling him to the ground while he was trying to leave.
Reportedly, Sevy turned down a $20,000 settlement to see the case through. He’s won about $600 in court fees but nothing in damages, so after two court battles he continues to appeal.
