And they weren’t quarters either, because those are still useful.
Mayor Carlos Hernandez is the troll in question here. The Mayor of Hialeah, Florida was slapped with a fine for lying to citizens about charging usurious interest rates on a loan issued to a jewelry salesman that was later jailed after being found to be part of a massive pyramid scheme. As an apparent part of the pyramid scheme, Hernandez admitted to receiving more than $100,000 in interest payments from the crooked jeweler.
So after an investigation, he gets slapped with a fine for $3,000 and another $1,000 for the investigation. In early November, Hernandez, along with TV crews, brought 28 buckets of pennies and nickels—mostly pennies—to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust to pay the fine.
The 360,000ish coins were deemed “commercially unreasonable and contemptuous by COE staff, and therefore, rejected.” The commission was having none of his shenanigans either, as they have since filed a lawsuit against him in small claims court on top of doubling the fine.
In response, Hernandez said earlier that “they are going to have to show why a public entity does not accept this country’s money.” Seems like he is sticking with the coin gambit.
The small claims court hearing is scheduled for December 9th.
Further reading on this story can be found here.