(energetic folk music) (air whooshing) Silvia Colby. Hi.
Good morning, Silvia. Please get close to the microphone, okay? Silvia, who's with you? Who is this? That's my daughter. Yeah, what's her name? Justina. Justina. Hi Justina. Hi, how old are you? Say I'm three. Three?
Three, three. (crowd laughing) (laughing) All right, Justina, we're gonna show you a movie. Watch the movie, okay? (laughing) Okay, Miss Justina?
(laughing) That's mommy. We'll give you some popcorn and some candy too, to watch the movie, okay?
Popcorn. Okay.
And the popcorn. All right, your mom is charged with going through a red light. Ugh.
On Westminster Street and Barton Street, and we're gonna see if she did it. So, look up there. Look up there. Okay. The light is red. Oh, boy. That's me.
Okay, Justina, come up here, come on. You stay there. No, no, you stay there.
Okay. All right, Inspector Caragan gonna get her up here.
Cool. Come here Justina, come here. Do you mind if I pick her up? Huh?
Do you mind if I pick her up?
Oh no, no problem. Come on. (crowd laughing) Hold that. Bang it. (gravel banging) Okay. Now Justina, I'm gonna ask you a question, okay? And you answer me. Is your mommy not guilty or guilty? Guilty. Guilty! (crowd laughing)
(crowd clapping) Okay, Justina, bang that. (crowd laughing) Bang it again, and say guilty. Guilty.
Guilty again. Guilty. Ohh.
She's a very smart girl. (crowd laughing) I think some day she's gonna be a judge. Sylvia.
Yeah? How many children do you have? I have two and one coming, three. You do? Mm-hmm.
How many months pregnant are you?
Six. Are you having a boy or a girl? I don't know, I don't wanna find out, because I have two girls already. (laughing) Now, if you have a boy, if you have a boy, you're rooting for a boy. You want a boy? I want a boy. I hope you have a boy, too.
Oh, thank you. Now, I know that it's tough to get a good boy's name, but you may wanna consider naming your son, Francesco. Ooh, okay. It's a great name, everybody wants it.
All right. Only certain people
All right I'll remember-- Can have it.
that. But if you name him Francesco, you may get some consideration in this court, you know? Okay, now your daughter banged the gavel, and she said guilty.
Yeah. And that's official. Okay, and she's very honest, but I'm gonna overrule her. I think that we're gonna dismiss the case. Oh, thank you! (laughing) I think maybe you spend the money on the new baby. (laughing) And on Justina as well. (laughing) Bang it again.
(hammer banging) Say guilty. Guilty. (laughing)
Guilty. Guilty a third time.
Guilty. (laughing) She keeps saying guilty. (guitar strumming)
(air whoosh) Your motor vehicle has been booted. You have, one, two, three, four, you have five red light violations. You were before the court, three months ago, and your motor vehicle had been booted then. Yeah. You were given an extraordinary break. The boot was released, on a payment of $40. That's almost unheard of, and there was a balance of $460. That you were supposed to pay $75 bi-weekly. (clears throat) And I gave you this break.
Mm-hmm. I'm the one. Well, what happened was--
And then, and then Diana, right? After you paid forty, the city paid $100 to have this boot released. Mm-hmm.
The city paid $100. Mm-hmm.
All right, and I don't know what you told me, it must have been a pretty good story, I released the boot for $40. You had a $460 balance, and you were supposed to pay. You haven't paid one penny since then. You didn't call. You did nothing, and I really get upset, but I get upset when people take advantage of my leniency. And you are a classic example, of somebody with total, totally no responsibility at all.
I do have responsibility.
And I'm not happy about it. What happened was my grandma had passed. I beg your pardon? Don't give me another sad story. I'm not.
It's not gonna work. My grandmother passed away, when that happened. I didn't know she was gonna pass away. I had to go travel to Texas, spend money that I didn't have, I had to pick up my little brother. Now I take care of my brother, I'm only 22 years old, I gotta take care of my little brother, he's 16. I just got my first apartment, I'm, just, just give me a second, 'cause I don't really care. (sigh) (murmurs) Get back over here. The other mic. We'll start again. Why didn't you call the court? 'Cause I have, I just had a lot going on. (sigh) (exhausted sigh) I work full time, I work mostly every single day. I only have one day off. You what? I said I work mostly every single day, I don't have a day, I only have one day off. What--
I don't have time. You don't have time to call the court? That's not, that's not what's on my mind. Calling the court is not on my mind. That wasn't on my mind. I had other things. You have other things to worry about. I had other things to worry about other than court. (clears throat) So, the fact that you were given an extraordinary break by this court, right? (clears throat) And that's not your concern, right? So, you thought that, I'll just ignore it. I wasn't going to ignore it, I knew I had to come face it, so I'm here to face it. I'm facing it. Listen, number one, you've had some problems in your life, based on what you just told me. And I'm sympathetic to those. What I'm not sympathetic to is you have a terrible disposition, right? You have no respect for this court, right? And your terribly disrespectful to the court, as well. I understand, you've had a problem in your house. Believe me, I am very sympathetic to that, you got a terrible attitude. You need an attitude readjustment, and I'm not, anyone else who had the same problem, with a good attitude, I might take into consideration, but you don't have a good attitude. And I gave you a big break the last time, but, so accept my sympathy on the, on your grandmother's passing away. (clears throat) But you're not getting a break this time. I'm gonna reinstate the previous judgment. You owe $60 on the boot fee, you didn't pay, so instead you're gonna pay that boot fee, plus a hundred dollars today, a hundred and sixty dollars to remove the boot. Balance is four hundred and sixty dollars, seventy-five dollars bi-weekly. If it's not paid, the boot will go back on the car. See the court. Judge, the last one was not booted. Huh?
It was booted before, it's not booted today. Oh, it's not?
No. She came in today to--
Oh, she came in voluntarily? Yeah, to square this up. I didn't see what--
Yeah. Inspector Quinn. Yes, judge? Have her wait. Have her wait. (guitar strumming) (crowd murmuring) Have you calmed down?
Mm-hmm. I was waiting for you to escape. I wanted to, but. (laughing) All right. (clears throat) I--
You don't understand-- Was mistakenly informed that there was a new boot on the car, which upset me a great deal, because I figured you just was, there was-- No, I don't have, there's no boot on the car. That there was complete and total disregard for the court, and that you were not coming back, but I've been informed that you came back voluntarily. All right, so you're here voluntarily, which means you came back with a lot of money, right? No, I just came back to, I have to pay, but I wanted... To I don't know.
All right, tell me, why did you come in today? Because everything is falling kind of back into place, so I'm ready to pay, like start paying. You came in because you wanted to get on a payment plan? Yes.
Oh, okay. 'Cause everything is going back to kind of normal now.
All right, and you don't want the car to get booted again. Yeah.
All right, so ya come in today to say, listen judge, I may appear to have a bad attitude, but I really don't. Is that what you wanna tell me? Mm, yeah. As a matter of fact, you have a good attitude, right? Yeah.
Right now, you do. (laughing) (chuckles) Yes.
All right. She's even smiling.
Yes. Tell me, tell me about your grandmother. Okay so, my grandma raised me all the way till I was 12, and then she moved to Texas. She lived there for like eight years, and then... she actually took my little brother with her, so she was raising my brother, as well. Like in Texas. I moved in with my grandma, two years ago, I only lasted two months, 'cause I didn't like it. I came back to Rhode Island, I didn't know my grandma was sick. She was, but she didn't tell me. So, that's the reason why she wanted me to live with her, but I didn't know. And then, in January, she just passed away, and then I had to go to, I had to go to Texas to pick up my little brother, I had to pay for his ticket here. And now I have, I'm raising my brother, and I'm only 22. And I have a daughter, and my brother's 16, and I just got my first apartment, so... Mm-hmm.
That's the reason why I came today, 'cause everything is falling back to place, and I didn't want my car to get boot. So, I wanna fix--
How old is your brother? Sixteen. And who do you live with now? I live by myself now. I just got my first apartment. Are you working? I work full-time. I'm a CNA. I work for Pace Organization. You work where?
Pace Organization. Oh. (exhales) I was pretty tough on you. You know? I think I, I think I misread you, I really do, you know? So, I should probably apologize for yelling at you. I don't usually go and do that, unless I go and get upset. There was something that triggered this, I thought you got booted again. I thought you were paying no, you completely abdicated your responsibility, and when I saw that, I said, you know, I really tried to give her a break. And she violated that, but you didn't. Okay? So, we're gonna see what we can do to help you, okay? What kind of a payment plan do you wanna make? The same one was, it's okay the same one that I had before. The seventy-five every two weeks, 'cause I get paid every two weeks. Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna reinstate the $460 balance, I'm gonna order you to pay $25, every two weeks. Okay. If you do that for, 16 weeks, which means if you make eight payments, okay? I'll dismiss the balance, Okay. Okay?
Thank you. So, not gonna put too much of a burden on you, okay it's gonna be, you want to, you could pay $45. Pay $25.
Okay. But, I want you to show some responsibility, that you're living up to what you were supposed to do. So, instead of 460, and I knocked that down, 'cause it was 935 dollars the last time you came in. I knocked it down to $460. I'm gonna knock it down even further this time, but I want you to show me that you can do it, okay? 25 every two weeks. Okay.
All right, and if you do that after eight payments, I'll dismiss it.
Okay. And you're gonna come in to see me then, right? Yes. (laughing) I'll bring my brother. (laughing) (laughing) You gonna bring your brother, too? Mm-hmm, yeah. Bring him in, I'll have him up here to help me decide the case.
(laughing) Maybe he can help me on your case, how's that? Yeah. (chuckles) Okay, I'll be here on August 12. Okay.
Okay? You gonna come down and see me? Yes.
You gonna bring me some coffee? Maybe. (laughing) No coffee and muffin? I mean, it's gonna be hot, you want a ice coffee? (laughs) No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not asking you to bring me anything. (laughing) At least we got her to smile, now. All right, Diana, good luck to you, right? We're rooting for you.
Thank you. All right, have a good day.
You too. (guitar strumming) Come on, how cool was that? If you'd like to see more cases like this one, tune into Caught in Providence every weekday. 'Scuse me? You didn't know Caught in Providence is also a TV show? Oh, wow! Your life just got substantially better. To find out what channel we're on, go to www.caughtinprovidence.com, click on your local listings, scroll down till ya find your hometown, then start doing your happy dance. That's it. Move it. Move it. Nice. (laughing) All rise, and hit subscribe, so you don't miss the latest viral moments, like this one. Share these videos, and weigh in on the cases. You be the judge. Subscribe now!
