Man Turns Fine Into Penny-Ante Problem

Irritated at a Spokane County District Court judge who ordered him to pay up, Michael Pierce plotted a payback.

The Spokane man showed up at the clerk’s office just before closing Friday to settle his bill - with 27,165 pennies.

Pierce lugged in seven canvas bags filled with the unrolled coins about 4:45 p.m. and presented them to the cashier. She refused to accept them.

“He said he wanted to pay,” said Rita King, the court administrator who waited on Pierce. “He said he went to the bank specifically to get the pennies.”

Pierce was found guilty of third-degree malicious mischief last spring. Judge Sam Cozza ordered him to pay a total of $271.65 in fines and restitution for damaging a car window.

He had until July 7 to complete the payment but missed the deadline, King said. A hearing for Oct. 6 was set before Cozza to find out why.

“He said (Cozza) told him at sentencing that he didn’t care how he got the money, even if he picked pennies up off the street, as long as he paid the restitution,” King recalled. “I guess he was making some kind of a point with the court.”

Cozza was out of town Monday and efforts to reach Pierce were unsuccessful.

Henry Bruno, an operations administrator in District Court, said policy prevents court clerks from accepting unrolled coins as payment. Pierce was asked to go to a bank and have the pennies changed to bills, he said.

“We don’t have the machines to sort and count that many pennies or the staff or the time,” Bruno said. “But he didn’t want to go back to the bank because he had just come from the bank to get the pennies in the first place.”

Cozza supported the court’s decision to follow the coin policy, Bruno said.

When Pierce asked King if she was refusing his money, she told him she was refusing the pennies. Then Pierce asked her to put it in writing.

“I told him no,” King sighed, noting other people were waiting in line behind Pierce. “It was just one of those end-of-the-day situations that we Had to deal with.”

Pierce left with his bags of pennies and didn’t return. His fine wasn’t paid Monday, either.

“He’s got plenty of time to get that money changed into bills or whatever,” Bruno said.

When he imposed the fines, Cozza suspended a 179-day jail sentence for Pierce, records show.

, DataTimes