Woman charged after using fake insurance card to retrieve her car

It was bad enough when a southwest suburban woman was pulled over for a traffic violation and found to have a suspended license, but it got worse when she showed up to get her car with a phony insurance card, according to police.

About 4 a.m. Thursday, Palos Park police pulled over a vehicle in the 7800 block of 127th for a traffic violation, a statement from police said. The driver — Jennifer L. King 33, of Oak Lawn — was cited for driving on a suspended license.

When police checked the insurance card she gave them, they found it was for a different vehicle, so King was also cited for no valid insurance, police said. She was freed after posting bail.

When she came back about 2:40 p.m. to fill out paperwork to get her impounded vehicle back, King showed an American Family Insurance card. Police got suspicious, however, because the card contained “assorted misspelled words and only half of the vehicle identification number (VIN) numerals.”

A check showed the card had been issued for a vehicle registered in Colorado, and had expired more than 10 years ago, police said. So King was charged with providing a false insurance document. Her next court appearance is March 17.

Police said “counterfeit insurance cards are not worth the paper they are ‘copied or pasted on’,” and can lead to arrest and non-payment of insurance claims for the other driver involved in any crash.