A $600 used Chevrolet Monte Carlo sat in a parking lot at Chicago O’Hare International Airport long enough to turn into a six figure problem. By the time the situation became public, the car had been cited a record 678 times and the balance attached to it was reported at more than $106,000. The person whose life was upended was not the person accused of abandoning the vehicle, but the woman whose name was on the registration: Jennifer Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald’s account, repeated across multiple reports, was that the car’s paperwork did not reflect who actually used and controlled it. She said her then boyfriend, Brandon Preveau, bought the Monte Carlo in 2008 from her uncle for $600, then registered it with the state under her name without her knowledge.
