One of the cabbies charged with over-charging his fares is settling in for a fight. Since the TLC didn't seem interested in his claims of a cabal of cabbies plotting to scam their passengers ("I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public," he told them in September. "They were actually having meetings at my old garage."), Joseph Kastner is planning to fight the charges in court.
Kastner, 49, was earlier called the sixth-worst of the city's bad hacks by District Attorney Cy Vance for allegedly overcharging fares out of $7,756.50 in 3,925 trips. Basically, he and many other cabbies were hitting the out-of-town rate button while still driving in the city. The total number of overcharges system-wide is thought to be somewhere around $1.1 million dollars over 286,000 trips.
It isn't immediately clear how Kastner is going to try and get out of this one (though the Post makes him out to be very confident about his case) but we certainly hope he dresses properly!
