Millions owed in Port Chester parking ticket backlog, NY audit finds
An audit by the state court system revealed a decades-old backlog of tens of thousands of unpaid parking tickets in Port Chester, totaling nearly $9 million in fines and penalties, the Rye Town administrative judge said in a letter to Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace.
In his letter on Tuesday, November 25, Municipal Judge Max Di Fabio objected to the failure to enforce parking tickets over the years because the audit found there were 53,815 unpaid parking tickets from 2000 through August of this year. Base fines for these tickets totaled $2,408,660; With penalties and legal increases, this figure increased to $8,799,630.
Rye Town Court’s audit has not been made public. Port Chester Village Court has been dissolved and its functions, including village parking citation authority, have been assumed by the town court as of May 2021.
The court is expected to file default judgments with the Westchester County Clerk for those who have not paid their tickets within the past two years. “Last warning” letters demanding payment will be written to those who have not paid their tickets between 2000 and 2023.
Di Fabio described these steps, suggested by OCA senior analyst Matthew Post, as “remedial steps.”
Rye Town Court at the Port Chester police/court building, Nov. 28, 2025.
According to Di Fabio’s letter, Post also advised him to inform the District Attorney of the “scope of the problem”; so that prosecutors “can decide whether any additional enforcement tools—civil, criminal, or other—are appropriate, particularly with respect to the most severe or high-dollar repeat offenders among the pre-2023 sentences.”
The judge also urged Cacace that his office “determine whether current or former Village officials or employees (including those who previously held judicial administrative positions) bear civil or criminal liability for the systematic failure to enforce these parking violations and the resulting multi-million dollar loss of public funds.”
Parking machine on Main Street in Port Chester, November 28, 2025
Di Fabio declined to comment. A spokesman for Cacace said the prosecutor had received the letter and was reviewing it. Asked about the audit and Di Fabio’s reference to the Post’s directives, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration said Wednesday they were reviewing the matter.
Current, former Port Chester officials react
The previous town administrative judge, Anthony Provenzano, left the bench last year and now serves as director of the Port Chester Housing Authority and village corporation counsel, an unusual position in village governments. He said he served as legal counsel to the village board of trustees, separate from the village attorney.
He said obtaining default judgments has not been a priority during his time overseeing the city court since taking over Port Chester court duties. He also thought that this was the duty of the village prosecutor. Matthew Troy, the attorney who now holds the position, said this was news to him because such prosecutors only deal with penalties when not-guilty pleas are presented or when violators seek reduced sentences, not when they are ignored.
Asked whether Di Fabio had explicitly referenced himself and other court administrators who likely took responsibility for the proposed misconduct, Provenzano said that would be up to the prosecutor.
Village Mayor Luis Marino said the village board discussed the issue Wednesday night but declined to comment, citing the investigation. He said the board was advised by Village Attorney James Carpiniello, who could not immediately be reached for comment.
In 2011, an amnesty program that prevented late fines for those who paid outstanding tickets was moderately successful. At the time, the village had about $1.6 million worth of unpaid parking tickets, The Journal News/lohud reported; $5.9 million when late fees are added.
There was also an amnesty program launched after 2019, but details were not immediately clear. Marino referred questions about this to Village Manager Stuart Rabin, who did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday and Friday.
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This article first appeared in the Rockland/Weschester Journal News: Port Chester appears to owe millions in backlogs in parking tickets, New York audit finds
