Florida toll-booth worker, 77, fired for paying driver's toll


A Florida toll booth worker claims he was fired for helping pay a driver's toll, our news partners at WPTV  Channel 5 report.

Vladislav "Sam" Samsonov said he did not charge enough toll money for a trailer driver last week, so he paid the extra five dollars himself.

“In my eyes there was no crime committed, I just helped somebody out,” Samsonov told WPTV.

Samsonov, 77,  worked for almost 30 years as a toll collector at the Boca Grande Causeway, WBBH reports. Samsonov told WPTV he has sometimes paid drivers' tolls if they didn't have enough money.

“I’d put six dollars in, I got the six dollars back the next day,” he said to WPTV.

He also said he was told by his employer to cease paying for drivers in the past, but he says he “was never formally written up,” WPTV reports. Samsonov said the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority gave him shifts for two days a week instead of five days a week as punishment, but he said no thanks.

“If I can’t be trusted for five days, how can I be trusted for two days?” he said to WPTV.

Read more at wptv.com