Did you receive a citation at the gathering?

 Citation Holders

 If you received a citation at the gathering and did not attend court on June 30th either because you were not scheduled to attend that day or because you did not receive a court date, I would like to pull a circle of people together to help everyone plan.

It may take some time for citations to be entered into the system and some people have never found their citations in the system.  

I believe there may be two options on the table, but I am willing to explore other options as well. Let's put our heads together. 

Email me at zirk karin at gmail dot com.  I am putting together a list and then will reach out and propose some times we can do a Zoom to discuss what tickets people have and what information they may have.

Let's deal with it together. 

Pay Online

In California 2024, there was on online payment system that you could use to pay your ticket online or go to court on the date assigned to you months after the gathering. It took a few months before peoples' tickets appeared in the system, but once there you had the option to pay Collateral forfeiture. This is a legal process that allows individuals charged with certain petty offenses to pay a specified amount of money to the government instead of appearing in court, effectively resolving the case without a conviction being recorded. 

CVB website and additional information.

In this model, as long as you pay your ticket before the scheduled court date, you do not need to appear at your arraignment to avoid a Federal Warrant as long as you pay the ticket a few days in advance. Don't wait until the last minute as courts move slowly and you don't want to pay the ticket the day before, the court may not be aware, and then you will get a Federal Warrant.

Mandatory court appearance months after the gathering 

These are Federal mandatory court appearance tickets that require you to appear in a Federal Courthouse (typically in the State's Capital) a few months after the gathering is over. This happened in Missouri 2025. People were not allowed to pay their tickets online. Everyone had to travel to Springfield Missouri in October and plead no contest or not guilty. The information I received from those who went through the process was that the court was not prepared for this nor did they know anything about it until 1-2 weeks ahead of time. 

I don't know if this will happen this year or not, but I have a plan to deal with this and prevent each of you from having to travel to Pennsylvania. 

 

Prior to the gathering, I share tips on Avoiding citations at the gathering. Obviously this doesn't cover all possible cases.