Nutter: I never tried to fix a ticket

Disputing testimony in a federal ticket-fixing trial, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said he never tried to get tickets fixed back when he was a city councilman.

Six former Traffic Court judges are currently on trial in the federal ticket-fixing case. According to an account in the Philadelphia Daily News, Traffic Court finance director Christopher Waters testified that more than a decade ago, when he was a personal assistant for a Traffic Court judge, someone from then-Councilman Nutter’s office contacted him for help on somebody’s traffic ticket.

Neither the date of the alleged request nor the name of the person ticketed was mentioned in court.Nutter is out of town, but spokesman Mark McDonald said in an email that as councilman, Nutter never asked a Traffic Court employee to dismiss a ticket, and to Nutter’s knowledge, no one on his staff did.

Julia Chapman, who was chief of staff in Nutter’s councilmanic office from 1995 to 2006, also said the office did not contact Traffic Court on behalf of people who had tickets.

“We would advise people of their rights and guide them through the process,” Chapman said, “but we didn’t call Traffic Court judges. If someone on the staff had done that, I would have told them not to.”

Nutter served on Council from 1992 to 2006, before being elected mayor in 2007.