Illinois Bureaucrat Tries to Fix Ticket, Mistakenly Faxes Request to Newspaper

People fax the darndest things.

​Whoops! The Belleville News-Democrat has a funny story that landed right in its lap -- almost literally.

The paper recently received a fax from Joann Reed, the records clerk at the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, that was supposed to go to Centreville village attorney Carmen Durso. Instead it ended up being faxed to the newspaper.

The fax included a copy of a speeding ticket on which Reed had scribbled "Dismiss it" and "The guy is the son of one of our deputies."

So, the paper called Reed. She confessed to trying to change the ticket but said she wasn't doing it for the son of a sheriff's deputy. It was just for a hard-luck college kid who needed help.

The paper found that, no, the person on the ticket was actually the son of a sheriff deputy. Sheriff Mearl Justus says he'll investigate Reed's action.