Time to pay your bill, troll.
That’s the message the Port Authority is sending to a New Jersey squatter who owes $25,000 over four years in unpaid tolls, according to a new lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The lawsuit states that Jose Guzman, a Cumberland County resident, He owes $25,407 in unpaid fees and administrative costs. The data was collected upon entry into New York City between December 2015 and December 2019.
On top of that, the Port Authority, which manages the Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, Outerbridge Crossing and the George Washington Goethals Bayonne Bridge, is seeking another $5,255 in interest, bringing the total to more than $30,000.
If Guzman drove a normal car, it would mean he crossed the border free of charge more than 400 times a year, a roughly two-and-a-half-hour journey from his Vineland home.
The Bridge and Tunnel Authority had been pursuing Guzman since 2020, filing a lawsuit alleging “toll evasion, theft of services, trespass, fraud and failure to pay tolls,” and winning a judgment against Guzman in a lower civil court in 2023.
In that process, authorities asked Guzman’s banks to seize more than $24,000 in his bank accounts.
The current lawsuit aims to force the bank to repay the full amount owed.
“No amount has been paid or fulfilled,” the lawsuit states.
Representatives for the Port Authority and its lawyers were not available for comment Friday.
Federal trucking records show Guzman runs a small trucking company and the tolls he was charged during the period covered by the lawsuit may have been higher than the typical $15, but exact details about the vehicles he allegedly owned were not immediately available.
Guzman could not be reached for comment.
A relative told The Post that the family had not been in contact with Guzman in years but did confirm that he owned at least one vehicle in the trucking business.
“It’s probably been years,” the relative said, adding that Guzman’s past legal troubles have led the family, including his two children, to completely sever ties with him.
“We broke up,” she said, “but I’m not even talking to him and I still have to deal with this drama, which is more frustrating in itself.
“If you do anything, you will eventually pay the price.”
