Vehicle ID dispute with state robs bikers of prize Harleys

Today, James Healey and David Bailey find themselves in a dispute with state Department of Motor Vehicles officials, who seized the duo's circa-1970s Harley-Davidsons during a traffic safety inspection checkpoint.

Healey and Bailey have had proper titles and registrations for years, but both motorcycles were confiscated immediately. The roadside inspectors determined that the bikes didn't have original Vehicle Identification Numbers.

Standing in the grass, Healey and Bailey were dumbfounded as a DMV enforcer handed each a slip of paper stating "Auto Impound Notice." They watched helplessly as officials wearing green windbreakers marked "Investigator" loaded Healey's 1971 Sportster and Bailey's 1977 FLH onto a flatbed truck.

For two true Harley-Davidson devotees who had sweated through years of restoration work, it was a stunning, unjust heartbreak.

"Shock. Total dream state. Sick to my stomach," Bailey said. "We walked around that festival in total disbelief. This is the most un-American damn thing I've seen in my life."

Investigator Ken Theobald of the state police Auto Theft Unit said state law is clear:

Motorcycles with VINs that are inconsistent, altered or not original must be seized. Theobald, one of the law enforcers at the June 25 Rendezvous inspection, said Healey's and Bailey's bikes have fraudulent VINs. Though Healey and Bailey have not been charged with a crime, Theobald said, there's no basis for giving the bikes back.

Healey's and Bailey's dilemma has shocked New York's motorcycling community. Vintage Harley collectors are wondering now if state inspectors are beginning to seize bikes with irregularities that could stem from a replaced part, with no evidence of theft.

"This is the first I've heard about this in New York state," said Mark Stevens, owner of Rollin' Bones Motor Co. in Binghamton.

Stevens, 50, suggests the situation is unfair. At the same time, he said, it's difficult for authorities to write regulations to protect every law-abiding motorcyclist.

"There's no answer to this," he said. "The state's answer is to make it simple ... but if he can't prove it and the state (investigators and industry experts) can't prove it and it's a stalemate, why should it hurt him?"

Healey and Bailey have hired a lawyer, and intend to go to court. The lawyer, Terence O'Leary of Walton, said the DMV is violating his clients' U.S. constitutional rights in confiscating the motorcycles.

"The government stole them," O'Leary said, "and still has them and hasn't given any information about them and is putting the burden on the owners -- and the expense. Typical for what's going on in government these days -- just self-serving pigs at the trough."

O'Leary said a 2002 federal appeals court decision, Krimstock v. Kelly, guarantees due process to people who have motor vehicles seized.

Healey and Bailey are mechanics who deeply love Harleys and had tinkered with their old bikes for years. Each purchased his bike from private owners in Delaware County -- Bailey in 1992 and Healey in 2001. They have titles, registrations, license plates and sales receipts. There are no scratch marks or indication the VINs were tampered with, they say.

Healey, 35, of Walton, said VINs on his frame and engine matched, but the state investigators said at least one was not an original factory stamping. Healey believes they are original, and the inspectors don't recognize certain inconsistencies in the manufacturing process for models around 1971.

Bailey, 35, of Hamden, said his engine had a legitimate VIN, but his frame had no VIN. He figures it's because a previous owner probably replaced a damaged frame.

Stevens said Harley-Davidson frames were generally identical from 1965 to 1979, and didn't have VINs stamped on them until 1970. He says manufacturing peculiarities are reputed in the 1970s models.

Peter Simet, VIN expert at Harley-Davidson Inc.'s headquarters in Milwaukee, said "there are a lot of myths" about manufacturing irregularities during the 1970s. There are no variations of VIN fonts or styles, said Simet, a retired police officer.

Simet said he would need to inspect closeup photographs to determine if Bailey's argument could be true. Bailey has no access to his bike to obtain such photos.

The cousins feel helpless and furious that they don't seem to have a venue in which to contest the state's findings. They have gathered paperwork, sales receipts for the bikes and parts they bought, letters of support from the county clerks and local DMV offices and other evidence.

But after two months, they said, no investigators have returned their phone calls.

"I've got all this evidence and nowhere to send it," Healey said.

Christine Burling, a DMV spokeswoman, said there's little Healey and Bailey can do.

"They really have to wait until the investigators finish with their investigation," she said. "Our investigators' main goal is to find out who the rightful owner is and bring justice to that rightful owner."

At the state checkpoints, investigators from the state police, DMV and the National Insurance Crime Bureau work together to inspect the bikes, Theobald said. Manufacturers provide guidebooks to help the authorities make accurate assessments. This was the third straight year an inspection team worked outside the Rendezvous, held annually near Duanesburg.

Under state law, the DMV stores the seized bikes at an impound facility, scrutinizes VINs and attempts to make an identification. If they can determine the rightful owner, the motorcycle is returned. If after a few months the effort is inconclusive, the bike is assigned a new VIN and is put up for public auction.

Theoretically, Healey and Bailey could buy their own bikes back, but each is worth thousands of dollars -- hardly pocket change.

The system results in 100 to 150 motorcycles being seized in New York annually, Burling said. "In most cases, honestly, they don't get the bikes back," she said.

Theobald said the investigators, in any borderline cases, typically give the person possessing the bike the benefit of the doubt. But, he said, there's "no question" Healey's and Bailey's motorcycles were unlawful. Any tampering with a VIN, a felony in New York, must be presumed to have something to do with theft, Theobald said.

"Both of them contain nonoriginal, fraudulent Vehicle Identification Number stampings," he said. "The law doesn't allow you to take (original) stamping off. There's no reason to do that anyway, except for one."

He said, though, that Healey and Bailey are not under suspicion.

"They're contending that they owned the bikes for a number of years and didn't do any altering," Theobald said. "That may be true. If we thought they had, they'd probably be under arrest."

Judging from the state's handling of Healey's and Bailey's bikes, Stevens surmises that 5 to 10 percent of the circa 1970s Harleys on the road today are vulnerable to seizure by the state.

Decades ago, Stevens said, motor vehicle offices generally used the VIN on the engine to identify the bike. In recent years, though, they have recognized the frame's VIN as the dominant identifying number, probably because engines were often replaced. Because Bailey's frame has no VIN, it seems impossible to trace its origin.

"There's no way of ascertaining that," said Bob "Prospector" Boellner, secretary and lobbyist for the New York office of the motorcyclists' rights group American Bikers Aimed Toward Education. "So it's hard to determine who's in the right, especially considering some of these things have been on the road for years. Maybe there needs to be a better system."

Stevens said much equipment that is questionable probably was never contraband.

"There's a myth that they get stolen a lot," Stevens said. "Really, what I want to emphasize, after 30 years of putting together these bikes from parts, is that stolen motorcycles are a rare thing -- a really rare thing.