This man lost his job and car — and he says it’s all because of a court’s huge mistake

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A Dekalb County man says he lost his job and his car all because the county recorders court made a huge mistake.

A police officer pulled Donte Carter over one day while he was sitting in a McDonald’s drive thru.

He had no idea he was about to go to jail until the DeKalb County officer told him to step out of the car.

He said turns out your driver’s license is actually suspended,” Carter said.

He got a speeding ticket back in November, but paid it on time with receipts to prove it.

The officer took him to jail anyway, and he lost his job driving a fork lift because of it.

“It changed everything. Lost my job, the best job I’ve ever had at that,” Carter said.

He then lost his car, because he couldn’t afford to get it out of the impound lot.

“Right now, it is $2,000 to get it out,” Carter said.

Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes called the DeKalb County recorders court to find out why the state suspended his license after he paid the ticket on time.

A representative told Fernandes it was, in fact, the county’s fault.

In December 2014, a new system went live, and there were major issues uploading electronic citations into benchmark.

Quite a few citations did not merge, and Carter’s citation was one of them.

The system should have matched up the two citations and it did not do so.

“Well, that’s a problem that they’re going to have to truly, truly fix, because they changed my entire life that day,” Carter said.