(The Center Square) – In Ohio, failure to pay highway tolls could come with a heavy toll: time behind bars.
A grand jury in Williams County recently indicted an Illinois truck driver on grand theft charges for failing to pay $21,881 in tolls on the Ohio Turnpike over a two-year period, the Turnpike said in a statement.
If convicted, the truck driver could face 18 months in prison and a fine of $10,000, the turnpike said. His truck, a Freightliner Cascadia semi -tractor, could also be seized through criminal forfeiture.
The 241-mile turnpike stretches through 13 counties across northern Ohio.
County prosecutor Katherine Zartman declined to comment specifically on how Musamih allegedly evaded tolls for two years.
“The point is that he was caught, and we have proof of each one,” she told The Center Square.
With improvements in technology, vehicles no longer have to wait for a bar to be raised on toll roads before driving through, she said. Instead, they can choose the lanes for those with electronic “E-Z” passes even though they don’t have a pass.
“It’s much easier for people to just pass through and not pay,” she said.
Zartman has been a prosecutor in Williams County for 18 years and this is the first felony case for failure to pay tolls that she has encountered.
The Ohio Turnpike last month named 315 commercial trucking companies that owe $5,000 each or more in unpaid tolls, spokesman Charles Cyrill told The Center Square.
Collectively, those companies owe the Turnpike almost $5.2 million in unpaid tolls dating back to April 2024.
“Companies are either simply choosing not to pay, or using deliberate toll evasion tactics, or both,” Turnpike Executive Director Ferzan M. Ahmed, said in a statement.
Officials catch drivers who don’t pay by capturing license plate images, sending unpaid tolls to collections, blocking license plate renewals by putting holds on those who owe tolls and “taking legal action when necessary,” according to a news release.
However, most drivers do pay their tolls, Cyrill said.
“I just wanted to point out that 98% of our transactions, which include cash and customers with E-Z Pass, are running successfully,” he said.
