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The city of Longmont is paying off nearly $1,600 in E-470 toll charges assessed against a Westminster woman whose stolen license plate was used by an undercover Longmont police officer.
Debra Romero was barred from renewing the registration of her car, which expired in May, until she pays off the unpaid tolls she didn’t accrue, according to a story in the The Denver Gazette.
Longmont Police Sgt. Stephen Schulz was using Romero’s stolen license plates on an unmarked take-home police vehicle for his police work. When he learned in October 2020 that Romero was being charged for the tolls — which were mostly E-470 charges + he contacted his supervisor.
“She (Mrs. Romero) was accumulating bills,” said Jeff Satur, deputy chief of the Longmont Police Department.
The supervisor then turned over the charges to the city’s risk management division to reimburse Romero, said Satur. However, the city never reimbursed Romero for the toll charges. “There was no record of the tolls being paid,” Satur said. “And we’re not sure why.”
When Romero’s story surfaced in the Denver Gazette, the city contacted Romero on Aug. 19 and paid the $1,592.72 toll bill, Satur said. “This should have been rectified 10 months ago. She (Romero) didn’t deserve this,” he said.
Schulz took Romero’s stolen and unclaimed license plates from the police department’s property and evidence room to use on the unmarked car, Satur said. It was common practice to use cancelled plates and use them on police cars for undercover and surveillance purposes, he said.
“Any undercover officer could have picked a plate for use, it just happened to be Steve Schulz,” Satur said.
Longmont has since stopped the practice of using cancelled plates from the property and evidence room, Satur said. “We have a variety of plates we can access for our work,” he said.
Police had about 130 unclaimed and stolen plates in property and evidence, which have since been destroyed “or are destined to be destroyed,” Satur said.
He declined to talk about other facets of the Gazette’s story including that Schulz and three other officers in the narcotics unit were placed on paid administrative leave while an outside group investigated the narcotics unit’s workplace environment.
Satur said he couldn’t comment on personnel issues. He said the narcotics unit has been disbanded and Schulz is currently working on the police department’s gang unit.
