My question involves traffic court in the State of: New Jersey
Hello, thanks for reading. Hopefully someone here can offer some assistance on what I should do.
I was pulled over this morning around 10:00 a.m. I was on the highway, and getting off at my exit - two police cars were following me for about a mile and decided to follow me off the exit, and pull me over a few seconds after turning. The officer was rude when he came to my window, I tried to be as polite as possible. Gave him my information and asked him why I was being stopped. He told me that he randomly ran my tags and saw that my license was suspended. I told him that I was unaware of this. In so many words he basically said, "that's what they all say" He also told me that my insurance policy was canceled in June and that Geico has no record of my policy, and that my registration was suspended. Needless to say, I was in a state of utter shock. In July, I received my unemployment and I paid my insurance policy up front for 6 months (Good until Dec 09) I always, always pay my premium up front. I'm not sure what happened, but apparently Geico never received my payment - that I made over the phone with one of their representatives.
They towed my car. I did expect that, but when I asked questions about where my car was going the officer got defensive and called for backup. It was odd. The other cop got there moments later, started asking my friend in the passenger seat her information, name, date of birth, address, social security number - and even "what state were you born in" I find that unnecessary.
To top it all off, he gave me a ticket for obstruction of windshield. There is nothing on my windshield.. my gps stays between my seats. I do not understand this at all, and in my head - it was his excuse for pulling me over in the first place. He had to justify his actions.
I'm not working at the moment, and have no idea when I'll be coming into some money. I know for a fact I cannot afford these four tickets, plus reinstating my license, registration, insurance and paying for my car to get out of impound.
I was not aware of ANY of this going on. I certainly would NOT have been driving, had I know this would have happened.
Two weeks ago, I was pulled over for maintenance of lamps - they ran tags, license, registration and insurance and everything came up clean. How is it, if I have been canceled since June of this year - that I was free to go with just one ticket two weeks ago?
Do I need to retain an attorney?

