Man to spend 8 years behind bars for fake Bieber tickets

  HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The man accused of duping Justin Bieber fans into buying fake tickets will spend eight years behind bars.

Charles Grusczynski reached a plea deal with prosecutors for selling fake tickets to at least five people via Craigslist.

Bieber visited Houston last month.

Prosecutors say Grusczynski's targets made the crime that much worse.

"They save their money -- their babysitting money, cutting-the-grass money -- to be able to afford tickets that are extremely expensive, and they look forward to these events for months, and to have their dreams, like the judge said, demolished and shattered by somebody who's just a career criminal," said Rob Fryer, an assistant district attorney in Montgomery County.

Grusczynski may have pulled the same scam in Dallas. He has similar convictions in Florida.

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Four HPD officers accused of issuing tickets for chance to get overtime

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We're learning more about the Houston police officer disciplined for inappropriate behavior while writing tickets.

What they did was all in an effort to get themselves to court and thus eligible for court overtime pay, according to city disciplinary records. There were four officers involved and all four have been suspended without pay.

Three of the four officers suspended worked out of HPD's central patrol, and you might remember one of them from a 13 Undercover investigation. Two years ago, senior police officer Matthew Davis was writing about 10,000 tickets a month, earning him in 2009 about $60,000 in overtime pay. Testifying at court earns police officers overtime.

Davis, Sgt. Paul Terry and officers Steven Running and Kenneth Bigger are all off the job because of some of their ticket-writing practices.

According to city disciplinary records, they unnecessarily listed one another as witnesses on tickets. One officer just drove himself to the city jail where a suspect had already been taken. The investigation concluded they not only lacked sound judgment but did so to accrue court overtime compensation. An audit of two traffic stops involving the officers revealed the scheme, and the chief handed down punishment.

"Twenty, 30, 45-day suspensions are heavy suspensions," Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland said.

The police union attorney for the officers called listing multiple officers as witnesses on tickets a normal practice and said the allegations were much ado about nothing. He said the officers couldn't do anything to change the chief's perception, so they accepted their punishment.

"I think they're hardworking guys," defense attorney Harold Landreneau said.

Landreneau knows the officers well from court and their reputation as high ticket writers. He can't help but think the city is missing them.

"I know they're out there writing all the time and the usual spots that I see them, I haven't seen them lately so I'm sure the numbers have gone down for the city," he said.

The shortest suspension of 20 days is up next week. The longest, 45 days for the sergeant, is up October 20. The records don't say how many tickets the officers wrote using each other as witnesses or much they earned in overtime pay from them.

It's important to note the department still thinks the tickets were valid.

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Cost of Texans playoff tickets dropping

  HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The cost of Texans playoff tickets have dropped quite a bit after the team lost three in a row.

According to Seatgeek.com, the Texans playoff tickets are averaging about $300 on secondary markets. In mid-December, before the Texans' winning streak came to an end, the average price was more than $400.

Of course, depending on where you sit, you could pay more or less. Club level tickets are going for about $550 Nosebleeds are selling for a little more than $200.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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Texans playoff tickets sell out in less than 5 minutes

  HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Next weekend, the Houston Texans will play their first ever playoff game and tickets for the game are sold out.

The team sold 2,000 tickets on Friday in about five minutes, but fans can still get into the big game, if they are willing to pay some big bucks.

Jim Nicolai first got Texans season tickets for their inaugural season and he bought tickets for the Texans first ever playoff game, but he has to give them up.

"Yeah, I'm gonna sell 'em . I been through a divorce so I kinda need the money," he said.

Nicolai and many others are selling their Texans tickets on StubHub.com. The site has about $6,400 playoff tickets for sale. Prices start around $135 and range up to $2,500. We did find one seller offering two nosebleed seats for almost $10,000.

"It does definitely give us plenty of inventory for people to go to the event that they want to go to, to see their home team in a playoff game, which this city hasn't seen in a long time," said Brian Young with StubHub.

The tickets are the hottest ones in Houston. The sellers hope they can cash in on playoff fever.

"The biggest thing is just seeing how excited the city is, that the home team is finally in the playoffs. Everyone's excited," Young said.

The date, time and opponent for the Texans playoff game will be determined Sunday after the final regular season games are played.

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Amnesty program for unpaid tickets

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The Houston Police Department has announced an amnesty program for people with outstanding tickets.

The idea is to pay up so you won't get locked up. The amnesty program running for the next two weeks includes parking tickets non-traffic and traffic citations that were delinquent on or before February 28, 2011.

The city of Houston is hoping you'll go to court and simply settle your outstanding tickets, but if you don't, they're going to make an effort to find and arrest you.

At any given time, the municipal courts have 300,000 outstanding cases, and they want to clear them up, even if it means offenders pay at a reduced rate.

Judge Barbara Hartle with the City of Houston Municipal Court said, "My hope as a judge is that people are not going to live out there with warrants out for them, that they're going to come in and resolve their warrants so they don't have to worry about being stopped on 610 with their whole family and their kids in the car and then be placed in handcuffs and taken away."

If you have an unpaid traffic ticket, a court date may have been set. If you didn't show up at that time, an additional fee may have been added for a failure to appear violation. Authorities are suggesting that if you clear things up during this amnesty period, perhaps the failure to appear fee may be dropped, or you may be allowed to pay the ticket at a reduced rate.

Beginning on June 5, anyone who hasn't taken care of their citations will have a warrant issued for their arrest. Then a warrant round-up will held from June 5-19, with officers looking for offenders at their homes, workplaces and on the roads.

If you don't know if you have a traffic ticket, you can call 311, visit your local court building, or go online to the city's website. Additionally, you can search for a parking citation by license plate number.

(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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