BANGOR — The owner of a local used car dealership is scheduled to plead no contest Thursday at the Penobscot Judicial Center to 28 of 84 counts of using counterfeit inspection stickers, according to the Penobscot County district attorney’s office.
Glenn Geiser, 48, of Brewer, owner of My Maine Ride, is not expected to attend. The plea will be entered by his defense attorneys Joseph Baldacci and Eugene Sullivan, both of Bangor.
Baldacci is out of the country this week, according to personnel in his office. Efforts to reach Sullivan on Tuesday afternoon were unsuccessful.
Geiser will pay a fine totaling $7,000, or, $250 per count plus fees and surcharges, Assistant District Attorney Tracy Collins Lacher said Tuesday in an email. The other charges will be dismissed.
A vehicle purchased from My Maine Ride in August 2013 that had an inspection sticker but was deemed defective by Maine State Police investigators led to charges against Geiser.
Geiser’s license to inspect vehicles was under suspension when he illegally purchased inspection stickers from an auto shop in Winterport and put them on defective cars he sold at his dealership, a state police investigator said last week.
“One of my inspectors looked at that vehicle and agreed it should not have passed inspection,” said Sgt. Bruce G. Scott of the Maine State Police’s motor vehicle inspection unit, explaining why the used car dealer’s license to issue inspection stickers was originally suspended. “You can’t put a vehicle inspection sticker on a defective vehicle.”
Geiser and the dealership he owns in Bangor both were issued a one-month suspension from issuing inspection stickers on Aug. 13. During the suspension, police discovered Geiser’s dealership continued to inspect vehicles on their lot.
Use of a counterfeit certificate of inspection is a Class E crime, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
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